Abstract The aim of the research is to determine if the audit fees are statistically significantly different between the audit companies and vary, depending on the size of client and audit company. We find that for large auditees the average audit fees of the Big 4 Group did not statistically significantly deviate from normative audit fees, even surpass them, but not statistically significant. On average, small audit firms when auditing large auditees do not meet the predicted normative audit fees, and this deviation is statistically significant. Also, we confirm that the Big 4 auditing companies (KPMG, E & Y, Deloitte and PwC) were, statistically, significantly more likely to charge higher audit fees than a small auditing company would charge. The paper contributes to the literature to give users a clear indication about what average audit fees are typical of the Slovenian audit companies and which audit company is at the forefront.

中文翻译：

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审计公司之间的激烈竞争和获得更高审计费用的权力：谁走在前列？

摘要 本研究的目的是确定审计费用在审计公司之间是否存在显着差异，是否因客户和审计公司的规模而异。我们发现，对于大型审计对象，四大集团的平均审计费用在统计上没有显着偏离规范的审计费用，甚至超过它们，但在统计上并不显着。平均而言，小型会计师事务所在对大型被审计方进行审计时不符合预期的规范审计费用，这种偏差在统计上是显着的。此外，我们确认四大审计公司（毕马威、安永、德勤和普华永道）在统计上比小型审计公司收取更高的审计费用的可能性要大得多。