Sustainable Development of Audit Market: Benefits of Audit Price Deregulation in China

Utilizing a unique audit price deregulation policy in China, we examine industry-specialized auditors' competing strategies in different markets. Our results from the difference-in-difference model reveal that after audit price deregulation, audit fees of industry-specialized auditors in less developed markets become significantly lower than other auditors. Furthermore, we find the decreased audit fees of the industry specialists are not due to the reduced audit effort, and the audit quality is not impaired. On the other hand, industry specialists cannot keep their audit fee premium in more developed markets after the policy. These results indicate that audit price deregulation makes industry-specialized auditors more available, which benefits the market's sustainable development. Our study contributes significantly to the industry specialized auditor literature by providing novel evidence that industry specialists' competing strategies could depend on the market's development.