The recent global financial crisis underscores the degree to which effective regulatory policy is critical to the continued health of the economy. Sounding the cause for alarm, this book suggests that the modern era of U.S. corporate governance regulation-which began with Sarbanes Oxley and has been marked by a conspicuous lack of efficacy and enormous costs-has lost its moorings. A litany of well-intended econometric analyses has failed to facilitate regulatory progress. To remedy this problem, the authors utilize an eclectic, analytic framework to conducts the most comprehensive analysis of Sarbanes Oxley-era regulation to date. The result is a nuanced, conceptual level understanding of the current state of regulatory policy. Whereas its implications are likely to prove controversial for decades to come, effectively underscored is the immediate, dire need for fundamental regulatory reform, both in terms of policy content as well as policymaking process, which will be found in this book. In particular, this book aims to impart a nuanced understanding of the following issues to the U.S. and global economy: At a fundamental level of analysis, why is the regulation of business firms fundamentally necessary, and what is its primary objective? Why are efforts to regulate the corporation fraught with immense difficulty? (e.g., why is the King Canute approach to regulation doomed to fail? What are the natural limits of regulatory efforts?) What is corporate accounting and what is its nature? What are the dominant weaknesses of U.S. GAAP? What is regulatory failure? (Is it a failure of regulatory policy, of corporate agents, or perhaps both?) What is the process by which major policies, within a contemporary U.S. setting, become enacted law? Is it ideal, or is there significant room for improvement? If so, how? Stakeholder analysis: What are the major effects of modern corporate governance regulation upon a) CEOs and executives and b) investors If regulation, as a defining characteristic of the modern epoch, is no longer adequately moored in rational considerations, by what forces is it actually being shaped? (Is this ideal or regrettable?)