Discussion and limitations discussion of big 6 status results
Results indicate that the big 6 do not obtain fee premiums over non-big 6 firms for assurance services in the multi-employer pension plan market. This result was somewhat surprising based on previous audit fee research and because big 6 firms are likely to have the expertise to conduct pension plan audits due to their size and prevalence in the single employer pension plan market. Given that expertise, the same incentives which result in the willingness of plan administrators to pay higher fees to