Public Enforcement of Securities Market Rules: Resource-based evidence from the Securities Exchange Commission

Tim Lohse, Razvan Pascalau () and Christian Thomann

No 364, Working Paper Series in Economics and Institutions of Innovation from Royal Institute of Technology, CESIS - Centre of Excellence for Science and Innovation Studies

Abstract: We empirically investigate whether increases in the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) budget have an effect on firms’ compliance behavior with securities market rules. Our study uses a dataset on the SEC’s resources and its enforcement actions over a period beginning shortly after the Second World War and ending in 2010. We find that increases in the SEC’s resources both improve compliance and lead to an increased activity level of the SEC. The higher level of compliance is reflected by a decrease in the numbers of enforcement cases. The increased activity level is reflected by a surge in the number of inves-tigations conducted by the SEC.

Keywords: Public enforcement; securities laws; compliance; Securities and Exchange Com-mission; budget (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D21 G14 G18 K22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 38 pages
Date: 2014-05-20
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hhs:cesisp:0364

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