Audit Fees and Auditor Size: Further Evidence
研究审计市场结构，特别是大型审计公司（八大）是否像卡特尔一样收取更高费用。Simunic曾发现八大整体收费更低，但其中一家收费较高，可能反映审计质量差异。
During the past decade, the structure of the market for public accounting services-particularly audit services-has received scrutiny from regulators, practitioners, and researchers. A major focus has been on supplier (audit firm) size, and especially on the large shares of markets held by a subset of firms called the Big Eight.' One hypothesis is that the Big Eight function as a cartel and higher than competitively warranted fees. This hypothesis was tested by Simunic [1980], who concluded that the Big Eight as a group tended to lower fees than non-Big Eight firms. His conjecture was that his results were consistent with scale economies enjoyed by the larger CPA firms. He did observe, however, that one of his Big Eight firms seemed to charge higher fees, which might reflect the higher quality of the audit services supplied by that firm.2