IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jfinqa/v54y2019i02p759-787_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

SOX Section 404 and Corporate Innovation

Author

Listed:
  • Gao, Huasheng
  • Zhang, Jin

Abstract

This paper exploits a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the relation between the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) of 2002 and corporate innovation: firms with a public float under $75 million can delay compliance with Section 404 of the act. We find a significant decrease in the number of patents and patent citations for firms that are subject to Section 404 compliance relative to firms that are not. This relation is more pronounced when firms are financially constrained and when firms face high litigation risk. Overall, our evidence suggests that SOX imparts real costs to the economy by decreasing corporate innovativeness.

Suggested Citation

  • Gao, Huasheng & Zhang, Jin, 2019. "SOX Section 404 and Corporate Innovation," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(2), pages 759-787, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:54:y:2019:i:02:p:759-787_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022109018000844/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, Hanwen & Yang, Daoguang & Zhang, Joseph H. & Zhou, Haiyan, 2020. "Internal controls, risk management, and cash holdings," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    2. Zhang, Xiaoqian & Lv, Shixian & Lin, Wenlian, 2020. "Related guarantee and implicit tunneling," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    3. He, Yuqian & Tang, Song & Wang, Lanfang & Wang, Susheng & Yu, Tao, 2024. "Private equity market development, state ownership, and firm innovation: Evidence from China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 958-985.
    4. Huang, Jingchang & Cao, June & Hasan, Tahseen & Zhao, Jing, 2021. "Low-carbon city initiatives and firm risk: A quasi-natural experiment in China," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    5. Cianci, Anna M. & Convery, Amanda M. & Evans, Mark E. & Hughen, Linda & Werner, Edward M., 2021. "The impact of costly regulation on R&D investment levels and productivity," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    6. Bedford, Anna & Ma, Le & Ma, Nelson & Vojvoda, Kristina, 2022. "Australian innovation: Patent database construction and first evidence," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    7. Gordon, Elizabeth A. & Hsu, Hsiao-Tang & Huang, Huichi, 2020. "Peer R&D disclosure and corporate innovation: Evidence from American depositary receipt firms," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    8. Zhang, Xiaoqian & Yu, Mingqiang & Chen, Gaoquan, 2020. "Does mixed-ownership reform improve SOEs' innovation? Evidence from state ownership," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    9. Chen, Tao & Gao, Huasheng & Wang, Yuxi, 2021. "Tariff uncertainty and firm innovation: Evidence from the U.S.–China Permanent Normal Trade Relation," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 12-27.
    10. Yanyang Yan & Juan Wang & Sijia Qiao, 2022. "Effects of Industrial Policy on Firms’ Innovation Outputs: Evidence From China," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(3), pages 21582440221, September.
    11. Michael Dambra & Matthew Gustafson, 2021. "Do the Burdens to Being Public Affect the Investment and Innovation of Newly Public Firms?," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(1), pages 594-616, January.
    12. David Hillier & Patrick McColgan & Athanasios Tsekeris, 2022. "How did the Sarbanes–Oxley Act affect managerial incentives? Evidence from corporate acquisitions," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1395-1450, May.
    13. Xu, Si & He, Xiaoyi & Cao, Chunfang, 2023. "Struggle for survival in credit crunch: The effect of interest rate deregulation in China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    14. Dai, Yanke & Du, Ting & Gao, Huasheng & Gu, Yan & Wang, Yongqin, 2024. "Patent pledgeability, trade secrecy, and corporate patenting," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    15. Liu, Yurou, 2023. "Judicial independence and crash risk: Evidence from a natural experiment in China," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jfinqa:v:54:y:2019:i:02:p:759-787_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jfq .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.