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Journal of Accounting and Economics Vol. 20 No. 3 1995

Auditor brand name reputations and industry specializations

Allen T. Craswell1; Jere R. Francis2; Stephen L. Taylor1

1 The University of Sydney · 2 University of Missouri

Abstract

The development of both brand name reputation and industry specialization by Big 8 auditors is argued to be costly and therefore to increase audit fees. For a sample of 1484 Australian publicly listed companies we estimate audit fee premia for Big 8 auditors. On average, industry specialist Big 8 auditors earn a 34% premium over nonspecialist Big 8 auditors, and the Big 8 brand name premium over non-Big 8 auditors averages around 30%. These results support that industry expertise is a dimension of the demand for higher quality Big 8 audits and a basis for within Big 8 product differentiation.

DOI
10.1016/0165-4101(95)00403-3
Volume
20
Issue
3
Pages
297-322
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref bibtex:phds-export.bib

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