Abstract

WERBIN, Eliana; MARIN VINUESA, Luz María  and  PORPORATO, Marcela. An empirical study of sticky costs in Spanish companies. Contad. Adm [online]. 2012, vol.57, n.2, pp.185-200. ISSN 0186-1042.

To understand how and why the level cost changes is essential to effciently manage an organization. Traditional cost accounting classifies them into fixed and variable, whether they change or not with changes in the activity level. Nevertheless, recent empirical research shows evidence of sticky costs because their response is stronger when the activity level increases that when such level falls. This paper shows that sticky costs are present in Spanish companies for the period 2005-2007 and that their magnitude is comparable with previous studies. This same type of study can be replicated in other international contexts provided that there are complete and publicly available databases, which means an interesting line of research.

Keywords : sticky costs; cost accounting; managerial accounting; Spanish companies.