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.

Table of Content
Chapter 1  Introduction	                         1
   1.1	Research Background and Motivation 	 1
   1.2	Research Purpose	                 2
   1.3	Research Contribution            	 3
   1.4	Flow Chart of Research          	 5
   1.5	Glossary	                         7
Chapter 2  Competition Conditions in Taiwan’s 
           Public Accounting Industry            9
   2.1 	Introduction	                         9
   2.2	Literature Review	                11
	2.2.1	Market competition	        11
	2.2.2	Taiwan’s CPA industry	        13
   2.3	Empirical Model                         15
	2.3.1	The PR test	                15
	2.3.2	Test for long-run equilibrium   20
   2.4	Data Sources                            22
   2.5	Empirical Results               	27
	2.5.1	Test of market competition	27
	2.5.2	Test of long-run equilibrium	30
   2.6	Conclusions                      	34
Chapter 3  An Evaluation of Technical 
           Efficiencies for the Top 100 Public 
           Accounting Firms in China            37
   3.1	Introduction	                        37
   3.2	Literature Review and Hypotheses’ 
        Development	                        40
	3.2.1	Development of China’s 
                CPA industry            	40
	3.2.2	Hypotheses’ development  	42
   3.3	Empirical Model                 	44
   3.4	Variables’ Definition and Research Data	47
	3.4.1	Data source              	47
	3.4.2	Variables’ definition    	48
	3.4.3	Descriptive statistics   	50
   3.5	Empirical Results               	56
	3.5.1	Results based on the 
                entire sample           	56
	3.5.2	Results based on the sample 
                excluding the Big Four   	59
   3.6	Conclusions                      	60
Appendix  Stochastic input distance frontier 
          estimation results                    62 
Chapter 4  Conclusions and Recommendations     	63
References			                65

List of Tables
Table 2-1   Meanings of the H statistic  	16
Table 2-2   Variable definition         	19
Table 2-3   Descriptive statistics of the 
            structure of Taiwan’s public 
            accounting market                   24
Table 2-4   Descriptive statistics      	26
Table 2-5   Estimation result of the PR 
            model during 1992-2008:lnCR5        28
Table 2-6   Testing results of long-run 
            equilibrium                  	31
Table 2-7   Test for long-run equilibrium of 
            Taiwan’s public accounting 
            industry during 1992-2008 (CSF)     32
Table 3-1   Descriptive statistics of the 
            research variables (2008~2009)      52
Table 3-2   Variables’ descriptive statistics 
            compared by merger status and 
            firm size                           53
Table 3-3   Testing results for differences 
            in technical efficiency across 
            different firm sizes                57
Table 3-4   Testing results for differences 
            in technical efficiency between 
            merged and  unmerged CPA firms      58
Table 3-5   Testing results for the differences 
            in the economies of scale measures	59

List of Figures
Figure 1-1   Flow chart of research              6
Figure 2-1   Trend of concentration ratios 
             based on CR5 and CR10       	25
Figure 2-2   Trend of market concentration 
             based on HHI                	25
Figure 3-1   Trends in service revenue among 
             the top 100 CPA firms 
             during 2002~2009            	48
Figure 3-2   Average measure of scale economies 
             for different firm sizes    	58

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