감사시장의 경쟁 수준, 감사인의 피감사회사에 대한 경제적 의존도, 그리고 감사품질

This study investigates whether the auditor’s economic dependence on the client moderates the effect of audit market competition on audit quality. Prior studies document that the intensity of audit market competition, measured by the number of auditors available in the year and industry, negatively affects audit quality. Extending the prior studies, this study focuses on the auditor’s economic dependence as a factor that mitigates the detrimental effect of audit market competition on audit quality. The auditor’s economic dependence is measured as the relative size of audit fees paid by an auditee out of total audit fees earned by the auditor. We expect that although auditors have incentives to sacrifice audit quality in a highly competitive audit market, the incentives will be significantly reduced when auditors are less dependent economically on their clients such that the benefits of compromising the audit quality are limited. Based upon on a sample of Korean listed firms for the period of 2005-2018, our empirical analyses support our prediction. Furthermore, we find that our results are driven primarily by the clients of non-Big 4 auditors, suggesting that non-Big 4 auditors, who are economically dependent on a small number of clients, are more susceptible to the competitive pressure in the market while Big 4 auditors provide relatively stable quality of service. In sum, our study provides important insights into auditor behavior for various interested parties, including researchers, regulators, and practitioners.