Auditor Changes: A Joint Test of Theory Relating to Agency Costs and Auditor Differentiation.
检验公司代理成本是否与对差异化审计质量的需求正相关，发现品牌名称模型（八大事务所）比规模模型更能解释代理成本与审计质量的关系，但模型整体解释力较低。
Abstract ABSTRACT: This study tests whether them is a positive association between a firm's agency costs and its demand for a quality-differentiated audit. Audit firm quality is represented in two ways: a continuous size model in which a direct association is posited between auditor size (measured by clients' sales) and audit quality, and a "brand name" model in which the Big Eight group of auditors is defined as higher quality suppliers. The tests are supportive of the brand name model of audit quality: agency cost proxies are significant as a group, after controlling for client size and growth, only in the brand name model. The results are also supportive (albeit weakly In some Instances) of the following individual agency-related Incentives for higher quality audits: monitoring of Incentive performance contracts, diffusion of ownership, owner-debtholder conflict, and the subsequent Issue of public securities after the auditor change. However, the explanatory power of the models tested is low, after controlling for client size and growth.