“…7 For example, researchers have explored the direct costs of the SOX 404(b) exemption (Iliev, 2010) or surveyed firms to gather data on equilibrium direct costs (Coates, 2007). Gao et al (2009), Dharmapala (2016), Khaled and Moon (2020), and Liu (2020) also exploit the bunching of firms around regulatory thresholds. The fuzzy bunching estimator does not require a lack of public float manipulation, but rather translates observed manipulation to regulation costs in dollar terms using a revealed preference approach.…”