Price Differentials in the U.K. Audit Services Market

The purpose of this dissertation is to consider whether there are price differentials in the U.K. audit services market under different situations. The empirical studies cover four aspects: Big Four premium; price differentials among accounting firms with different sizes; audit fee differentials wit...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Song, Yue
Format: Dissertation (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2009
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/23068/
Description
Summary:The purpose of this dissertation is to consider whether there are price differentials in the U.K. audit services market under different situations. The empirical studies cover four aspects: Big Four premium; price differentials among accounting firms with different sizes; audit fee differentials within Big Four; audit fee differentials between different industries. The empirical results reveal that audit prices of Big Four differ from Non-Big Four accounting firms. The higher level of audit fees in Big Four is consistent with previous study about Big Four premium. However, the price differentials between medium-size firms and small firms present to be negative. Moreover, some price differentials after comparisons within Big Four are significant but some of them are insignificant. Besides these, it is proved that there are price differentials of audit fees between different industries in the U.K. Key Words: Price differentials; Audit Fee; Big 4.