Study on the Correspondence between Premium and Discount of Audit Fee and the Difference in Reputation in Initial Discount

摘要

Using the data of audit fee in four consecutive years in Chinese A stock market, the paper conducted an empirical test on the correspondence between the premium and discount of the fee in the audit industry and the difference in reputation in granting discount. The results were analyzed by multiple regression analyses. It finds that in the early stage of development, there is a significant fee discount in China's audit industry. Particularly, the international "Big Four" accounting firms granted less obvious discounts, the domestic big accounting firms granted the biggest margin of discount, followed by local accounting firms. Correspondingly, the international "Big Four", claimed the biggest margin of premium, while some domestic big accounting firms also claimed certain margin of premium.