{"title":"Has Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act Discouraged Corporate Investment? New Evidence from a Natural Experiment","authors":"Ana M. Albuquerque, J. Zhu","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3049232","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Prior studies conclude that one of the unintended consequences of complying with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX404) is a lower level of corporate risk-taking activities. However, some argue that firms complying with SOX404 benefitted from more reliable financial statements, greater transparency, and lower cost of capital, resulting in more risk-taking investments. We use the discontinuity requirement introduced by SOX404 to construct a natural experiment that isolates its effects. We find evidence that corporate investment and liquidity increased, while cost of debt decreased, for firms that had to comply with SOX404.","PeriodicalId":171289,"journal":{"name":"Corporate Law: Corporate Governance Law eJournal","volume":"91 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2018-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"25","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Corporate Law: Corporate Governance Law eJournal","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3049232","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 25
Abstract
Prior studies conclude that one of the unintended consequences of complying with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX404) is a lower level of corporate risk-taking activities. However, some argue that firms complying with SOX404 benefitted from more reliable financial statements, greater transparency, and lower cost of capital, resulting in more risk-taking investments. We use the discontinuity requirement introduced by SOX404 to construct a natural experiment that isolates its effects. We find evidence that corporate investment and liquidity increased, while cost of debt decreased, for firms that had to comply with SOX404.