IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/finlet/v86y2025ipes1544612325020033.html

Are borrowing costs affected by audit market structure? Evidence from market concentration

Author

Listed:
  • Jo, Jaehee
  • Jung, Keumah
  • Park, Sohee

Abstract

This study examines how audit market structure affects firms’ borrowing costs. We find that lower audit market concentration (i.e., greater competition) is associated with lower debt costs, suggesting that debt investors perceive competition as a signal of higher audit quality and respond by demanding lower risk premiums. This effect is more pronounced for firms that support more rigorous audit practices. A path analysis further indicates that improved audit quality is the channel through which competition reduces the cost of debt. Our main results are robust to propensity score matching, Heckman two-stage estimation, and alternative model specifications. Overall, this study sheds light on the spillover effect of audit market structure, offering regulators and policymakers valuable insights into the role of auditors in the pricing of corporate debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Jo, Jaehee & Jung, Keumah & Park, Sohee, 2025. "Are borrowing costs affected by audit market structure? Evidence from market concentration," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 86(PE).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:86:y:2025:i:pe:s1544612325020033
    DOI: 10.1016/j.frl.2025.108749
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1544612325020033
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.frl.2025.108749?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jere R. Francis & Paul N. Michas & Scott E. Seavey, 2013. "Does Audit Market Concentration Harm the Quality of Audited Earnings? Evidence from Audit Markets in 42 Countries," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 30(1), pages 325-355, March.
    2. Graham, John R. & Li, Si & Qiu, Jiaping, 2008. "Corporate misreporting and bank loan contracting," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 44-61, July.
    3. Pan, Yue & Shroff, Nemit & Zhang, Pengdong, 2023. "The dark side of audit market competition," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1).
    4. Jeong†Bon Kim & Dan A. Simunic & Michael T. Stein & CHEONG H. YI, 2011. "Voluntary Audits and the Cost of Debt Capital for Privately Held Firms: Korean Evidence," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 585-615, June.
    5. Sattar A. Mansi & William F. Maxwell & Darius P. Miller, 2004. "Does Auditor Quality and Tenure Matter to Investors? Evidence from the Bond Market," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 755-793, September.
    6. Dye, Ronald A., 1991. "Informationally motivated auditor replacement," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 347-374, December.
    7. DeAngelo, Linda Elizabeth, 1981. "Auditor size and audit quality," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(3), pages 183-199, December.
    8. Chen, Peter F. & He, Shaohua & Ma, Zhiming & Stice, Derrald, 2016. "The information role of audit opinions in debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(1), pages 121-144.
    9. Xinming Liu & Gerald J. Lobo & Hung‐Chao Yu, 2021. "Is Audit Committee Equity Compensation Related to Audit Fees?," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(1), pages 740-769, March.
    10. Diamond, Douglas W & Verrecchia, Robert E, 1991. "Disclosure, Liquidity, and the Cost of Capital," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(4), pages 1325-1359, September.
    11. Francis, Jere R., 2004. "What do we know about audit quality?," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 345-368.
    12. Blackwell, DW & Noland, TR & Winters, DB, 1998. "The value of auditor assurance: Evidence from loan pricing," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(1), pages 57-70.
    13. Leuz, C & Verrecchia, RE, 2000. "The economic consequences of increased disclosure," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38, pages 91-124.
    14. Jeff P. Boone & Inder K. Khurana & K.K. Raman, 2012. "Audit Market Concentration and Auditor Tolerance for Earnings Management," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(4), pages 1171-1203, December.
    15. Kothari, S.P. & Leone, Andrew J. & Wasley, Charles E., 2005. "Performance matched discretionary accrual measures," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 163-197, February.
    16. DeFond, Mark & Zhang, Jieying, 2014. "A review of archival auditing research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 275-326.
    17. repec:tsa:wpaper:0042acc is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. DeFond, Mark & Zhang, Jieying, 2014. "A review of archival auditing research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 275-326.
    2. Pan, Yue & Shroff, Nemit & Zhang, Pengdong, 2023. "The dark side of audit market competition," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1).
    3. El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Pittman, Jeffrey, 2016. "Cross-country evidence on the importance of Big Four auditors to equity pricing: The mediating role of legal institutions," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 60-81.
    4. Guangming Gong & Liang Xiao & Si Xu & Xun Gong, 2019. "Do Bond Investors Care About Engagement Auditors’ Negative Experiences? Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 779-806, September.
    5. Aguir, Wael & Ater, Brandon & Anabila, Andrew A. & Sobngwi, Christian Kuiate, 2022. "The role of shared auditors in loan contracts," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 87-97.
    6. Fakhroddin MohammadRezaei & Omid Faraji & Zabihollah Rezaee & Reza Gholami-Jamkarani & Mehdi Yari, 2024. "Substantive or symbolic compliance with regulation, audit fees and audit quality," International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(1), pages 32-51, March.
    7. Yi-Hsing Liao & Hua Lee & Chao-Jung Chen, 2023. "The informational role of audit partner industry specialization," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 60(1), pages 69-109, January.
    8. Hou, Fei & Shen, Huayu & Wang, Ping & Xiong, Hao, 2023. "Signing auditors' cultural background and debt financing costs," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    9. Jeroen van Raak & Erik Peek & Roger Meuwissen & Caren Schelleman, 2020. "The effect of audit market structure on audit quality and audit pricing in the private‐client market," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(3-4), pages 456-488, March.
    10. Reiner Quick & Niklas Schenk & Florian Schmidt & Thilo Towara, 2018. "The impact of corporate governance on auditor choice: evidence from Germany," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 22(2), pages 251-283, June.
    11. Xingqiang Du, 2019. "Does CEO-Auditor Dialect Sharing Impair Pre-IPO Audit Quality? Evidence from China," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 699-735, May.
    12. Murat Ocak & Emrah Arıoğlu, 2025. "Narcissism, Audit Market Competition and Audit Quality: Evidence from the Chairpersons of Audit Firms," SAGE Open, , vol. 15(4), pages 21582440251, October.
    13. Gipper, Brandon & Sequeira, Fiona & Shi, Shawn X., 2026. "Carbon accounting quality: Measurement and the role of assurance," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2).
    14. Kharuddin, Khairul Ayuni Mohd & Basioudis, Ilias G & Farooque, Omar Al, 2021. "Effects of the Big 4 national and city-level industry expertise on audit quality in the United Kingdom," Journal of International Accounting, Auditing and Taxation, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    15. Chi, Hsin-Yi & Weng, Tzu-Ching, 2014. "Managerial legal liability and Big 4 auditor choice," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 67(9), pages 1857-1869.
    16. Bandyopadhyay, Sati P. & Chen, Changling & Yu, Yingmin, 2014. "Mandatory audit partner rotation, audit market concentration, and audit quality: Evidence from China," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 18-31.
    17. Ya-Fang Wang, 2020. "New Insights on Audit Quality," International Journal of Business and Economic Sciences Applied Research (IJBESAR), Democritus University of Thrace (DUTH), Kavala Campus, Greece, vol. 13(1), pages 21-28, April.
    18. Timothy B. Bell & Monika Causholli & W. Robert Knechel, 2015. "Audit Firm Tenure, Non‐Audit Services, and Internal Assessments of Audit Quality," Journal of Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 53(3), pages 461-509, June.
    19. Bley, Jorg & Saad, Mohsen & Samet, Anis, 2019. "Auditor choice and bank risk taking," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 37-52.
    20. Jeong-Bon Kim & Byron Song & Judy Tsui, 2013. "Auditor size, tenure, and bank loan pricing," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 75-99, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G23 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Non-bank Financial Institutions; Financial Instruments; Institutional Investors
    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting
    • M42 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Auditing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:finlet:v:86:y:2025:i:pe:s1544612325020033. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/frl .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.