-in-place are reduced. We find that changes in SG&A costs separate between the two cost drivers, and that the explanatory power of … of the single-driver cost behavior model. Similar insights are obtained when we replace SG&A costs with employee … headcount or employee costs as the cost measure of interest. In all cases, we find that the cost inertia term is significantly …

We synthesize the growing literature on asymmetric cost behavior — a new way of thinking about costs and, by extension …, earnings. While the traditional cost behavior model describes a mechanistic relation between activity and costs, this … alternative view recognizes the primitives of cost behavior — resource adjustment costs and managerial decisions. These primitives …