Sarbanes-Oxley and its Aftermath: A Review of the Evidence

Introduced in response to several high profile US corporate collapses the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 has proven to be a gold mine for academic researchers: after only five years no less than 528 studies of SOX appear on the Social Sciences Research Network (www.ssrn.com). This essay seeks to review the results of this research and provide a concise summary of the available evidence as of late 2007. Overall although SOX appears to have had some beneficial effects it has also: increased the costs of auditing governance and human capital and compliance more generally; induced a mis-match between auditors and firms; encouraged firms to delist or otherwise stay below the regulatory radar; lowered corporate investment and risk-taking; and had ambiguous effects on the quality of investor information and capital market eeffciency