“Big 4 fee premium” and audit quality: latest evidence from UK listed companies

Purpose – Using the most recent observations (2005‐2011) from a sample of UK listed companies, This paper aims to investigate whether Big 4 audit firms exhibit a “fee premium” and, if this is the case, whether the premium is related to the delivery of a better audit service. Design/methodology/approach – Univariate tests, multivariate regressions and two methodologies that control for self‐selection bias are used to answer the proposed research questions. Data are collected from DataStream. Findings – Findings provide consistent evidence about the existence of an “audit fee premium” charged by Big 4 firms while they do not highlight any significant relationship between audit quality and type of auditor with respect to the audit quality proxies investigated. Research limitations/implications – Evidence from this paper might signal the need for legislative intervention to improve the competitiveness of the audit market on the basis that its concentrated structure is leading to “excessive” fees for Big 4 clients. Findings might also enhance Big 4 client bargaining power. However, as the paper analyses only one country, generalizability of the results might be a limitation. Originality/value – This study joins two streams of the extant literature that investigate the existence of a “Big 4 audit fee premium” and different levels of audit quality among Big 4 and non‐Big 4 clients. Evidence supports the concerns raised by the UK House of Lords in 2010 that the concentrated structure of the audit market could be the driver of “excessive” fees for Big 4 clients as it does not find differences in audit quality between Big 4 and non‐Big 4 clients.