光华讲坛

主题：Switching Costs and Market Power in the Auditing Industry: Evidence from a Structural Approach（审计市场上的置换成本与市场势力：来自实证结构模型的证据）

主讲人：朱爱勇 （西南财经大学）

主持人：陈磊

时间：2022年11月1日（周二）10:00—11:30

地点：柳林校区通博楼D301

主办：会计学院 科研处

主讲人简介：

朱爱勇，西南财经大学会计学院教授，博士毕业于德国曼海姆大学。研究方向为审计、公司治理。在Review of Accounting Studies, The Accounting Review等发表文章。

摘要：This study provides novel evidence on the magnitude of switching costs in auditing. We use a discrete choice approach to infer switching costs from clients’ auditor choices. The demand estimation reveals that switching costs matter and that they differ by the direction with switching from non-Big 4 to Big 4 auditors being associated with the greatest switching costs. Counterfactual analyses of forced auditor switches indicate that switching costs are substantial, amounting to 682 million US dollars (14.2% of audit fees) when aggregated across all clients. Counterfactual analyses of voluntary auditor switches show that the audit market would become highly dynamic and more concentrated if switching costs were removed. Furthermore, clients would gain consumer surplus of up to 306 million US dollars (5.4% of audit fees) in this scenario. Overall, our study documents the important role of switching costs to understand audit market dynamics.

这篇文章利用离散选择模型对审计市场上的置换成本进行量化分析，并提供了新颖的研究发现：置换成本的存在显著影响了上市公司的审计选择，其规模大小与转换方向有关，从非四大会计事务所向四大会计事务所产生的转换成本最大。强制轮换的反事实结果表明：每年置换成本的平均规模为6亿8千万美元左右，大致为整个市场审计费用的14%。而自愿轮换的反事实分析发现当置换成本完全被补贴消除后，整个审计市场会变得更加波动又高度集中，而且上市公司的消费者剩余平均每年大约会增加3亿美元，即审计费用的5.4%左右。光华讲坛