Quasirentenmodell und Honorare für Abschlussprüfungen in Deutschland – eine empirische Analyse

The model by DeAngelo LE (1981a) Auditor independence, ’Low Balling’, and disclosure regulation. J Acc Econ 3:113–127 suggests, that audit fees do not cover audit costs with the client´s first audit when there is perfect competition in the audit market (low balling). Further, audit fees are supposed to increase with the maturity of the relationship with the client (fee cutting). In order to test the DeAngelo model we perform a multiple regression analysis for the German market of listed clients. The results are: First year audit fees do not significantly differ from audit fees in later periods. Audit fees increase with the maturity of the relationship with the client. Additionally, audit fees are positively associated with non-audit fees and (weakly) with Big4-auditors. These findings partly support the propositions of the DeAngelo models.     

Replik auf Stellungnahme zu ?Pr��fungshonorare in Deutschland �C Determinanten und Implikationen��

Responding to Merkl??s discussion the authors show that Merkl??s arguments are not convincing.     

Replik zu den Erwiderungen zu den Anmerkungen zu den Determinanten der Pr��fungshonorare in Deutschland

I maintain my critique of the studies of Bigus and Zimmermann (2009) and of Köhler et al. (2010) without reservation. In light of the legal basis of the scope of audits of financial statements, of auditing standards, of the practice of auditing of international groups of companies, and of international studies of audit fees, the replies of the authors do not provide solid counter arguments and do not seem to take the practice of auditing into account.     

Prüfungshonorare in Deutschland – Determinanten und Implikationen

The audit fees available since 2005 as a consequence of the Bilanzrechtsreformgesetz (commercial code reform act) show an extremely high supplier concentration on the German audit market of publicly listed companies. This justifies the assumption of audit fees above perfect market equilibrium prices. However, the complete collection and multivariate regression analysis of all relevant audit fee and client data document a 24 % decrease in audit fees in 2005 and an average 15 % decrease in the two subsequent years due to auditor changes. This can be interpreted as an indicator for price competition. In addition, the audit fee data shows that the audit fee decreases are only partially compensated by subsequent increases. As a consequence, there is no evidence for lowballing at present. Further time series are necessary to show if the current trend is sustainable.     

Erwiderung zu den Anmerkungen von Georg Merkl zum Beitrag ?Quasirententheorie und Abschlusspr��fungshonorare in Deutschland��

The comments made by Merkl on our study Bigus and Zimmermann (2009) are generally not helpful. The arguments put forward are partly wrong, partly not consistent and partly irrelevant.     

Auswirkungen der IFRS-Umstellung auf die Risikoprämie von Unternehmensanleihen – Eine empirische Studie für Deutschland, Österreich und die Schweiz

Does an IFRS-adoption reduce the information asymmetry between firms and providers of debt capital and therefore the risk premium of corporate bonds? Contrary to prior empirical studies we examine the relationship between disclosure and cost of capital for debt financing. We analyse the impact of an IFRS-adoption on the risk premium of German, Austrian, and Swiss corporate bonds between 1997 and 2005. Our results indicate that the change in risk premium declines after an IFRS-adoption by 40%. However, the effect occurs with a time-lag.