In recent years, legislators and regulators have evinced significant
interest in issues related to audit committee composition. Prior
research finds that, in the pre-SOX period, the stock market reacts
favorably to the appointment of expert directors to the audit committee.
In the post-SOX period, almost all companies have financial
experts on audit committees; hence, the signaling value of
appointing an expert may be less valuable in the post-SOX period.
Using a sample of 452 audit committee director appointments in
2004, 2006 and 2008, we find that the market reaction to the
appointment of different types of expert directors is not significantly
different from zero.