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...

The traditional view of cost behavior assumes a simple mechanistic relation between cost drivers and costs. In contrast, contemporary cost management research recognizes that costs are caused by managers' operating decisions subject to various constraints, incentives, and psychological biases....

This paper examines how, if at all, managers engage in cost management around periods of loan financing. Compared with matched benchmark firms, loan financing firms report lower operating costs prior to financing, while the difference in costs is insignificant post-financing. Loan financing...