Audit Office Size, Audit Quality, and Audit Pricing
研究了2000-2005年美国审计客户数据，发现审计事务所地方分所规模越大，审计质量越高，审计费用也越高，且这种关系独立于事务所整体规模和行业专长。
SUMMARY: Using a large sample of U.S. audit client firms over the period 2000–2005, this paper investigates whether and how the size of a local practice office within an audit firm (hereafter, office size) is a significant, engagement-specific factor determining audit quality and audit fees over and beyond audit firm size at the national level and auditor industry leadership at the city or office level. For our empirical tests, audit quality is measured by unsigned abnormal accruals, and the office size is measured in two different ways: one based on the number of audit clients in each office and the other based on a total of audit fees earned by each office. Our results show that the office size has significantly positive relations with both audit quality and audit fees, even after controlling for national-level audit firm size and office-level industry expertise. These positive relations support the view that large local offices provide higher-quality audits compared with small local offices, and that such quality differences are priced in the market for audit services.