Purpose

This study examines the relationship between economic policy uncertainty (EPU) and managers' ex ante strategic choice on firms’ fixed and variable costs structure, i.e. cost rigidity and the moderating effect of government contracts and political connections.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a sample of 4,162 US firms during 2003–2019 and EPU measure from Baker et al. (2016), the authors examine the association between EPU and cost rigidity using multivariate regression analysis. The authors also examine the moderating effects of government customers and political connections using the subsampling method.

Findings

This study finds that increases in EPU leads to higher cost rigidity, suggesting that managers tend to look ahead and make an ex ante commitment to invest more in fixed costs to avoid congestion costs in anticipation of future product demand during EPU. The study also finds that the presence of government customers and political connections moderates the need for adopting greater cost rigidity.

Research limitations/implications

This study measures firms' cost rigidity based on archival data. Future studies could utilize managers' cost structure choices using firms' internal management cost structure forecasts data to measure cost rigidity to examine the relationship between cost rigidity and EPU.

Practical implications

This study demonstrates that managers tend to make a proactive commitment to invest in fixed inputs when facing demand uncertainty from EPU to avoid congestion costs. This study also highlights the value of having government contracts and political connections by demonstrating that managers are less concerned about the congestion costs, hence weakening the impact of EPU on cost rigidity when they have government as major customers and/or political connections.

Originality/value

This study extends the management accounting literature by documenting that cost rigidity is related to EPU and that the relationship between cost rigidity and EPU also depends on whether the firm has government as major customers and/or political connections or not.

中文翻译：

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经济政策的不确定性和成本刚性：政府合同和政治关系的调节作用

目的

本研究探讨了经济政策不确定性（EPU）与管理者对企业固定和可变成本结构（即成本刚性以及政府合同和政治关系的调节作用）的事前战略选择之间的关系。

设计/方法论/途径

使用 2003 年至 2019 年期间 4,162 家美国公司的样本和 Baker等人的 EPU 衡量标准。(2016)，作者使用多元回归分析研究了 EPU 与成本刚性之间的关联。作者还使用二次抽样方法研究了政府客户和政治关系的调节作用。

发现

这项研究发现，EPU 的增加会导致更高的成本刚性，这表明管理者倾向于前瞻性并做出事前承诺，在固定成本上投入更多资金，以避免在 EPU 期间预期未来产品需求时出现拥堵成本。研究还发现，政府客户和政治关系的存在降低了采取更大成本刚性的必要性。

研究局限性/影响

本研究根据档案数据衡量企业的成本刚性。未来的研究可以利用管理者的成本结构选择，利用企业内部管理成本结构预测数据来衡量成本刚性，从而检验成本刚性与 EPU 之间的关系。

实际影响

这项研究表明，当面临 EPU 的需求不确定性时，管理者往往会主动承诺投资固定投入，以避免拥堵成本。这项研究还强调了拥有政府合同和政治关系的价值，证明管理者不太关心拥堵成本，因此当他们有政府作为主要客户和/或政治关系时，削弱了 EPU 对成本刚性的影响。

原创性/价值

本研究扩展了管理会计文献，记录了成本刚性与 EPU 相关，并且成本刚性与 EPU 之间的关系还取决于公司是否有政府作为主要客户和/或政治关系。