The Effectiveness of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 in Preventing and Detecting Fraud in Financial Statements

The collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and other large corporations in 2001 and 2002 motivated Congress to pass the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). The purpose of this legislation was to restore investor confidence in the United States stock markets, and to prevent and detect fraud in financial statements as well. This dissertation examines the effectiveness of SOX for the latter purpose of preventing and detecting fraud, using statistical enforcement data presented by the Securities and Exchan...