Abdul Rahman Al Natour, Ja Ryong Kim, Andrew W Stark, " The Pricing of Audit Services: Evidence from China " , "Asia Pacific Conference on Contemporary Research",Vol.Conference Paper,No., Asia Pacific Institute of Advanced Research - APIAR, Malaysia, 08/01/2017
:الملخص
This paper explores the determinants of audit fees and examines if government ownership, auditor choice, and legal environment affect the pricing of audit services in China. The pricing of audit services literature builds on Simunic (1980) model that tests audit market competition after controlling for factors that affect audit fees (i.e. difference in loss exposure, assessed loss-sharing ratio and production economies) as a function of audit quantity and price. The Chinese audit market provides a setting where the audit market is dispersed between three classes of audit firms (i.e. International Big-4, Domestic Big-10 and other Non-Big-10). Moreover, it gives the opportunity to test how government ownership might affect audit pricing, as well as the effects of the split-share reform (2005-2009). Finally, it allows studying how different regions with different macro-economic characteristics, as introduced by Taylor and Simon (1999), (i.e. litigation, disclosure and regulatory environments), may affect audit pricing in China. Using a sample of 1,845 Chinese listed firms during the period from 2003 to 2014 the main results show that: 1) audit firms charge government-owned firms less compares to other NSOE firms, 2) this audit fee discount for SOEs is only observed when an International Big-4 audit firm is assigned, 3) after the completion of the split-share reform this discount becomes marginal and slightly significant, and finally 4) macro-economic factors (i.e. legal environment) increases audit fees. This paper contributes to the literature on ownership structure and audit fees by including evidence from the split-share reform in China which helps practitioners understand how audit services pricing works in China and the role of auditor choice in moderating the government influence over audit pricing.
Abdul Rahman Al Natour, Ja Ryong Kim, Andrew W Stark, " Developing a Domestic Accounting Industry: Evidence from China " , "Symposium of a special Accounting Horizons forum Conference",Vol.Conference,No., 2017 Special Accounting Horizons Forum Conference, Suzhou, China, 11/01/2017
:الملخص
This paper studies how China develops its domestic accounting industry by promoting its domestic accounting firms over the international Big 4 accounting firms. Following the privatization effort of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) through the Share Split Reform from 2005 to 2008, the State Council announced a 5-year national policy in 2009 to develop 10 large domestic accounting firms that can compete with the international Big 4 accounting firms in the future. Studying Chinese sample from 2003 to 2014, we find that Chinese firms tend to hire higher quality audit firms after 2009 compared to the previous years before the national policy announcement by the State Council. A detailed investigation reveals that this tendency toward higher quality audit is mainly driven by the hiring of large domestic audit firms rather than the international Big 4 audit firms. In fact, Chinese firms tend to avoid hiring the international Big 4 audit firms, indicating that the impact of the State Council’s policy is taking effect. Consistent with the literature, firms under the government control or influence tend to avoid hiring the international Big 4. This is not a search for low quality audit, however, as SOEs still tend to hire more number of large domestic audit firms before the Share Split Reform. By decomposing high quality accounting firms into the international Big 4 and Chinese domestic Big 6, this paper extends the literature on political economy and auditor choice, and explains how China develops its domestic accounting industry through SOEs and national policy.
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