Auditor Industry Specialization and Audit Pricing and Effort
研究发现审计师行业专长既存在于事务所层面也存在于合伙人层面，专家审计师收取更高审计费用是因为投入更多工时而非更高费率，但在业务同质化的行业中工时增加较少，表明知识转移可能带来效率提升。
SUMMARY We find that auditor industry expertise is both a firm-level and partner-level phenomenon, which suggests that industry expertise captured by accounting firms is dispersed among engagement partners through knowledge sharing and transfers within audit firms. We also find that the higher audit fees by expert auditors are due to more hours and not higher rates. While spending more hours allows expert auditors to extract higher fees in total, the finding that expert firms/partners exert greater effort does not support the suggestion that expert auditors are in general more efficient in audit production. However, we find weak evidence that audit hours for expert auditors are lower in industries and companies with homogenous operations and comparable accounting than in other industries and companies. This finding suggests that knowledge transfers more likely take place in homogeneous and comparable industries, leading to production efficiency that moderates the increase in audit hours charged by experts. JEL Classifications: M4; M42. Data Availability: All data are available from the identified sources.