本研究探討會計師產業的市場競爭程度及其經營效率。研究對象在市場競爭程度面係以台灣會計師產業，在1992至2008年間的市場競爭度及競爭型態，以非結構法之 PR 檢定法 (Panzar and Rosse,1987) 進行研究，除探討管制變革中競爭程度的變化外，再與結構性指標諸如前五大會計師的市場集中度 (CR5) 和 Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHI) 進行比較，除瞭解我國會計師產業之市場競爭度及競爭型態外，並期一窺結構法與非結構法之差異；在經營效率面則以中國百大會計師事務在2008至 2009年間200個樣本的投入與產出資料，以投入面距離函數分析中國政府實施擴展會計師事務所規模政策下，對中國會計師事務所技術效率與規模經濟之影響。主要實證結果如下:首先，在市場競爭程度方面，實證結果發現我國會計師產業無論是全期間或各個次期間，皆為獨占性競爭之型態，且隨時間經過有朝向完全競爭型態之趨勢。運用切齊隨機邊界模型，發現我國會計師產業在各個次期間均達到長期均衡狀態；唯若使用傳統方法，卻出現未達到長期均衡狀態，顯示傳統方法容易導致迴歸係數估計式缺乏一致性。其次，在經營效率方面，實證結果發現，中國百大會計師事務所的規模愈大其技術效率愈高，顯現中國政府做大做強政策獲致預期之效果。再者，在樣本期間百大會計師事務所仍處在規模報酬遞增階段，隱含現階段大型會計師事務所採取擴大營運規模策略，仍可享有降低長期平均成本及強化競爭力之優勢。最後，採合併方式擴大營運規模之中國百大會計師事務所其技術效率並未高於未採合併者，推測可能係合併綜效未能在短期內發揮所致。 This dissertation explores two interrelated subjects.The first subjects investigates the degree of market competition in the public accounting industry of Taiwan over the period 1992-2008, using the ‘H statistic’ proposed by Panzar & Rosse (1987). Differing from previous works, this paper applies a newly developed model, i.e., the censored stochastic frontier (CSF) model, to test whether the audit market has achieved its long-run equilibrium. The model is superior to the conventional model that requires researchers adding a unity to the dependent variable of returns on assets (ROA) for all observations, forcing the transformed dependent variable to be non-negative. One can then take the natural logarithm of this dependent variable. The second subjects investigates the effect of a China’s government policy, which forces a public accounting firm to expand its production scale, on firms’ technical efficiency and economies of scale. We apply and estimate a standard input distance frontier using data on the top 100 Chinese accounting firms covering 2008-2009. The first subjects Evidence shows that Taiwan’s accounting industry is characterized as monopolistic competition with a trend towards perfect competition. The result will help to build up the empirical model for public accounting industry.The CSF model confirms that this industry is already in a long-run equilibrium in the second half of the sample, which validates the use of the Panzar-Rosse model. Conversely, the employment of the conventional approach leads to a rejection of the long-run equilibrium over the entire sample period. The second subjects Evidence shows that the larger the firm size is, the more technically efficient it is, thus justifying policy enforcement. Further more, economies of scale prevail in the top 100 accounting firms and are not exhausted, supporting that these firms keep extending their production scale to reduce their long-run average costs.
