审计市场中的合并、产业专用化投资和价格竞争

本文从产业组织的角度，分析了审计市场的合并、产业专用化和价格竞争等竞争行为，并进一步探讨了这些行为对审计质量和社会福利的影响。本文认为，审计质量的信号传递机制推动了产业中的合并行为，而审计产业的专用化投资行为在于策略性地阻止进入。由于审计产品的异质性、信任品特性以及强大的买方谈判能力使得审计市场存在激烈的价格竞争，而合并和产业专用化投资有助于事务所降低成本。因而，审计市场的竞争提高了社会福利。

Merger, Industry Specialization and Price Competition in Audit Market

This paper analyzes merger, industry specialization and price competition in the audit market and further discusses the impact of these activities on the audit quality and social welfare from the perspective of industrial organization theory. This paper argues the signaling of the audit quality facilitates the mergers in the industry. And the industry specialization investment features strategic prevention of competitive entry. There is price competition as results of the product heterogeneity, the features of trustee goods and the powerful negotiation ability of the buyers in audit market. However the merge and the industry specialization is instrumental in reducing the audit cost of accounting firms. Therefore the competition in audit market improves the social welfare.