We examine the impact of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) and the global economic crisis of 2008 on revenue generation patterns of public accounting and law firms. Using a sample of firm-year observations from both industries, we show that since the enactment of SOX, public accounting firms have significantly increased leveraging of partner time and decreased charge-out rates to boost their revenue per partner. While law firms also exhibit an increase in revenue per partner in the post-SOX era, their increase is rooted in higher average charge-out rates and lower leveraging. During the crisis, the public accounting industry was insulated by the relatively inelastic nature of its services. By contrast, law firms suffered a decline in demand for their services, which reduced their revenue generation by reducing their charge-out rates. We also consider cross-sectional variations within each industry and find significant differences across firms in the impact of SOX and the economic crisis. Notably, large firms in both industries were more significantly impacted by SOX and the Big 4 accounting firms were adversely impacted during the crisis. Our study sheds light on the revenue generation and human resource consequences of two significant macroeconomic events for two professional service industries that serve as watchdogs in our capital markets.

我们研究了 2002 年萨班斯-奥克斯利法案 (SOX) 和 2008 年全球经济危机对公共会计和律师事务所创收模式的影响。使用来自两个行业的公司年度观察样本，我们表明自 SOX 颁布以来，公共会计师事务所显着增加了对合作伙伴时间的利用，并降低了收费率，以提高每个合作伙伴的收入。虽然律师事务所在后 SOX 时代也表现出每位合伙人的收入增加，但他们的增长源于更高的平均收费率和更低的杠杆率。在危机期间，公共会计行业因其服务相对缺乏弹性而被隔离。相比之下，律师事务所的服务需求下降，这降低了收费率，从而减少了创收。我们还考虑了每个行业内的横截面变化，并发现不同公司在 SOX 和经济危机的影响方面存在显着差异。值得注意的是，这两个行业的大公司都受到 SOX 的影响更大，四大会计师事务所在危机期间受到了不利影响。我们的研究阐明了两个重大宏观经济事件对作为我们资本市场监管机构的两个专业服务行业的创收和人力资源影响。