中国上市公司初始审计的定价折扣考察——来自审计师变更的经验证据

初始审计的定价折扣具有重要的与审计独立性相关的公共政策含义。本文基于DeAngelo(1981)和Dye(1991)关于初始审计定价折扣的竞争性理论预期,利用2002——2004年我国审计市场的数据对初始审计的定价行为与特征进行了较为细致的实证考察。经验结果支持中国证监会关于审计费用的强制性公开披露政策,准租金和低价折扣引起的潜在的审计独立性问题会随着审计费用的公开披露而得到消除或减轻。本文还具有重要的监管含义:对审计师变更的监管应着重关注那些大型上市公司在小型会计师事务所之间进行变更的行为。

Study on Initial Audit Pricing Discount of China''s Public Companies: Evidence from Auditor Switch

Initial audit pricing discount can have important public policy implications related with auditor independence.This paper,based on the two competitive theoretical models of DeAngelo(1981) and Dye(1991),empirically tests the pricing behavior of initial audit by using the data of Chinese security audit market of year 2002—2004.The empirical results support the usefulness of CSRC's policy that requires public companies to disclose the audit fee information in their annual reports,the potential audiuor independence problem aroused by quasi rent and pricing discount will be eliminated or mitigated as the audit fee information being disclosed.The empirical results also have an important regulatory implication:we should pay principal attentions to the auditor switch behavior of big public corporations changing their auditor between the small audit firms.