As with all somewhat exploratory studies, it is important to be explicit about the in herent limitations of our research. First, we only analyze a single year of data and this potentially restricts our ability to generalize to other periods. Although our data are current, the time period of data collection coincides with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and changes in exchange listing requirements. If this regulatory change caused firms to adopt greater con formity in governance mechanisms, then this will reduce cross-sectional variation in our measures and decrease the power of our statistical tests. However, our analysis of other related governance data does not indicate substantial changes in structural measures of corporate governance in the time period surrounding the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Thus, we believe that our statistical analysis has sufficient power to detect the association between corporate governance and accounting outcome measures.