The Effect of Accounting Firms Size on Audit Fees

The study of audit fees is one of the most important issues in auditing market.Audit fees are the "economic bridge" between listed companies and accounting firms.Reasonable audit fees can improve the audit quality.This paper examines the effect of accounting firms on audit fees, and discusses whether there are significant differences in audit fees among different size of accounting firms.Through studying the audit fees of A-share listed companies of China from 2013 to 2015, we find that compared with the local accounting firms, the big four accounting firms have obtained a significant audit fees premium.And compared with the small and medium local accounting firms, the large local accounting firms have also obtained a significant audit fees premium.