The audit services market after the Arthur Andersen's collapse

Abstract

We verified that whether audit markets remain competitive in the wake of Arthur Andersen(AA)'s collapse and merger with Ernst & Young(EY) to create the Big Four. An auditing cost models based on world audit market data between both 2001 and 2005 was applied to estimate the difference before and after the AA's collapse. Result is consistent with product differentiation by Big N auditors and competitive markets.