Capital structure, corporate governance, and the effect of Sarbanes-Oxley

Abstract

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act represented a major legislative action designed to increase transparency and accountability in U.S. corporations. Within the context of agency theory and corporate governance, the expectation is that the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley impacted the agency relationship of firms and hence affected the corporate governance structure. With these changes, the question arises as to the capital structure decisions of corporations which have previously been shown to be related to agency measures and corporate governance. It is the objective of this research to examine the capital structure of U.S. firms as they relate to corporate governance measures and to determine the effect, if any, of Sarbanes-Oxley.