Number of Regional Accounting Firms and Audit Fees—Based on the Experience Data of Listed Companies in China in 2016

摘要

There are many research literatures on the influencing factors of auditing firms’ audit fees, but their influence on audit fees is rarely studied from geographical factors. This paper studies the relationship among the number of regional accounting firms, whether they are local and audit fees, and uses the 2016 A-share listed companies as a sample to collect the number of accounting firms in the cities where the listed companies are located through the Chinese CPA industry management information system; the CPA determines whether it is a local firm. The empirical results show that the number of regional accounting firms is significantly and positively related to audit fees. The greater the number of firms in the region, the higher the audit fees the company will pay. Moreover, this phenomenon is more prominent in the companies who employ local audits. Further research found that the increase in audit fees in the region is a significant manifestation of the improvement in audit quality.