Audit Pricing and Independence
构建了一个多期审计市场模型，分析客户与审计师在报告问题上存在分歧时，审计师对客户的依赖（即任期价值）是否威胁独立性。研究发现，只有当审计师之间对客户期望的报告政策存在分歧时，独立性才可能受到威胁。
SYNOPSIS: Previous researchers have identified the pricing phenomena of and in the market for audit services. One branch of this research has empirically estimated the magnitude of these pricing phenomena, while the other has hypothesized that they are caused by transaction costs incurred when a client firm switches to a new auditor. A principal concern of those who oversee the market for audit services is that the same forces that produce low-balling and price-cutting give the incumbent auditor a positive expected payoff from retaining the client. Such an interest in the client (called the of incumbency) could reduce the auditor's independence from the client, thereby affecting the quality of financial reporting. In this article, a multiperiod model of the audit market for a single client is presented, with the introduction of a reporting issue over which the auditor and the client may disagree. For instance, the client may prefer not to recognize an estimated liability, while the incumbent auditor believes that not recognizing the liability could be regarded as an audit failure at some point in the future. Under the assumptions that contingent audit fees are not allowed and that auditors and clients cannot make binding multiperiod commitments, the research shows that the auditor's value of incumbency presents a threat to independence only under limited circumstances. One condition that must be fulfilled for the client to put pressure on the auditor is that auditors in the market must disagree among themselves as to the appropriateness of the reporting policy desired by the client. If all audi-