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The Agency Problem, Corporate Governance, And The Asymmetrical Behavior Of Selling, General, And Administrative Costs, Hai Lu, Hai Lu, Theodore Sougiannis
The Agency Problem, Corporate Governance, And The Asymmetrical Behavior Of Selling, General, And Administrative Costs, Hai Lu, Hai Lu, Theodore Sougiannis
Research Collection School Of Accountancy
Selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) costs represent a significant proportion of thecosts of business operations. On average, the SG&A costs to total assets ratio is 27 percent,compared to the research and development (R&D) to total assets ratio of 3 percent(Banker, Huang, and Natarajan 2011). Due to the importance of SG&A costs, practitionerspay close attention to controlling SG&A spending. Understanding SG&A cost behaviorand the role of managers in adjusting the costs is thus important to researchers andpractitioners. Recent empirical research indicates that SG&A costs behave asymmetrically,that is, they increase more rapidly when demand increases than they decline when demanddecreases (Anderson, Banker, …
Firm Structure And Corporate Cash Holdings, Venkat Subramaniam, Tony Tang, Heng Yue, Xin Zhou
Firm Structure And Corporate Cash Holdings, Venkat Subramaniam, Tony Tang, Heng Yue, Xin Zhou
Research Collection School Of Accountancy
We analyze whether the organizational structure of firms (i.e., whether a firm is diversified or focused) affects their cash holdings. Using Compustat firm level and segment-level data, we find that diversified firms hold significantly less cash than their focused counterparts. Our results are robust to industry adjustments at the segment level and to different factors previously found to be important determinants of cash holdings. Using time-series, cross-sectional, and additional robustness tests we are able to attribute the lower cash holdings among diversified firms to complementary growth opportunities across the different segments of these firms and the availability of active internal …