회계감사인의 산업별 전문성과 회계감사보수와의 관계

This paper investigates the relationship between audit firm industry expertise and audit fees. Prior studies reported that auditors’ brand names and industry expertise are correlated with higher audit quality. While brand name auditors were associated with higher audit fees, the evidence suggesting a relationship between industry expertise and audit fees is mixed.The industry expertise of auditors exerts two contradictory influences on the audit fees. First, industry-specialized auditors are able to spread industry-specific training costs and obtain an economy of scale, allowing the audit firms to lower their audit fees. Second, industry-specific knowledge implies higher audit quality, allowing the audit firms to charge higher audit fees. In this way, fee discounts or fee premiums can be associated with the auditors’ industry expertise. Considering the fierce competition in the audit market, we suggest that firms with industry expertise will offer fee discounts unless the auditors are able to differentiate themselves from competitors. Our empirical results suggest that fee discounts are associated with industry expertise. However, when the industry-specialized auditors could differentiate themselves in terms of market share or bargaining power, they are able to earn fee premiums. These results indicate that in the Korean audit market, there exist industry-specialized auditors, and industry speciality can offer auditors the bargaining power to generate differential audit fees.