Research Paper on:
Increased Corporate Governance and Auditor Independence

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
December 2000, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York hosted an international conference titled, "The Rise and Effectiveness of New Corporate Governance Standards." Corporate governance is receiving attention all  around the world in those nations in which transparency and open structure are important. It is also not limited to those nations with a well-established corporate base, either.  Many of the worlds developing nations within designated big emerging markets also are giving concerted attention to the issue, in hopes of avoiding some of the problems that come with  the growth they anticipate in the future. Auditor independence figures prominently. Timeliness of the Issue The conferences keynote speaker was Arthur Levitt,  who had not yet stepped down from his position as director of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). During his address, Levitt said, "No market has divine right to  investors capital." Investors must be able to make rational decisions to invest in a company, based on the financial results reported, industry conditions and other factors. Of the  mix, only the historical results are quantitative. The others constitute knowledge of markets and trends combined with the very scientific "knack" of choosing good stocks.  At the time, the SEC had examined the reports of many publicly-held companies and had required more than 100 to restate their results. Despite such increased  regulatory scrutiny, the scandals at Enron, Worldcom and other big businesses were still to unfold in the future. At the time of the conference, the SEC also had imposed  new regulations concerning auditor independence (Melancon, 2000). Gompers, Ishii and Metrick (2003) report that "firms with stronger shareholder rights had higher firm value,