With differing quality levels among auditors in the pension audit market, the possibility exists that clients may be willing to pay a higher fee to a firm with greater expertise. Craswell etal. (1995) premised their discussion of clients’ willingmess pay more for audits by industry experts on a potential reduction in agency costs. In the pension plan context, a more direct linkage between perceived expertise and a client’s potential willingmess to pay higher audit fees is present. F a pension plan annual report is found to have audit or financial reporting deficiencies, fines for such deficiencies are levied on the plan administrator, not the auditor (Allen and auerbach 1996, p.2-55). A pension plan audit performed by a CPA firm with industry expertise is more likely to ensure that ERISA and GAAS compliance is achieved, thereby diminishing the possibility of the plan administrator being fined for deficient filings, and increasing the value of the assurance service to the administrator. Therefore, the plan administrator may be willing to pay more for the higher value audit. In summary, the pension plan audit market is characterized by expertise differentiation and in centives for clients to contract with audit firms having greater industry expertise. Based on the above discussion, the pension plan audit market could be classified in the lower right quadrant of figure 1, with expertise differentiation and perceived value of industry expertise.