The zero-earnings discontinuity in the US disappeared around the time when the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) became effective, suggesting that SOX may have reduced the small loss avoidance by firms. In this paper, we examine a potential confounding effect arising from the dotcom boom at the turn of the millennium. Many newly listed dotcom firms had no revenues but high market capitalizations. Therefore, they mechanically fell into the smallest loss interval, artificially reducing the zero-earnings discontinuity. Once this dotcom effect is accounted for, our results no longer suggest a sharp (causal) effect of SOX on the decline in the zero-earnings discontinuity.

美国的零收益不连续性在萨班斯-奥克斯利法案 (SOX) 生效时消失了，这表明 SOX 可能减少了公司的小额损失规避。在本文中，我们研究了世纪之交的网络泡沫带来的潜在混淆效应。许多新上市的互联网公司没有收入，但市值很高。因此，它们机械地陷入了最小的亏损区间，人为地减少了零收益的不连续性。一旦考虑到这种网络效应，我们的结果就不再表明 SOX 对零收益不连续性下降的急剧（因果）影响。