The issue of asymmetric cost behavior has attracted significant interest in the managerial accounting literature. The literature has hypothesized that adjustment costs, particularly labor adjustment costs, play a significant and central role in driving empirically observed cost behavior patterns. Recent studies attempt to empirically test this hypothesis, albeit with distinct limitations. Using a new proxy for labor adjustment costs in a different population of firms, our study takes a fresh look at this hypothesis. We test the robustness of results documented in prior studies to help substantiate the credibility, reliability, and stability of prior findings.

Our proxy for labor adjustment costs captures the reliance on skilled labor across industries in a population of US public firms. Prior studies argue that skilled labor is associated with higher adjustment costs than unskilled labor due to greater hiring and firing costs associated with skilled labor. Based on the theoretical underpinnings of asymmetric cost behavior, we expect that a higher reliance on skilled labor will be associated with greater cost asymmetry. Our empirical results support this proposition. In additional subsample tests, we also find that the effect of labor adjustment costs on cost asymmetry is more pronounced when unemployment rates are low, for firms located in high Wrongful Discharge Laws (WDL) states, and for firms situated in low-hiring credit states. Together, these results provide compelling evidence that validates the consequential role of labor adjustment costs in determining asymmetric cost behavior.

成本行为不对称的问题引起了管理会计文献的极大兴趣。文献假设，调整成本，尤其是劳动力调整成本，在驱动经验观察到的成本行为模式方面起着重要的核心作用。尽管有明显的局限性，但最近的研究试图对这一假设进行实证检验。我们使用新的代理代替不同企业群体中的劳动力调整成本，因此我们的研究重新审视了这一假设。我们测试先前研究中记录的结果的稳健性，以帮助证实先前发现的可信性，可靠性和稳定性。

我们的劳动力调整成本代理人反映了美国公共公司人口对各行业技术工人的依赖。先前的研究认为，与非技术工人相比，技术工人与更高的调整成本相关，因为与技术工人相关的雇用和解雇成本更高。基于不对称成本行为的理论基础，我们预计对熟练工人的更高依赖将与更大的成本不对称性相关。我们的经验结果支持这一主张。在其他子样本测试中，我们还发现，当失业率较低时，位于错误排解法（WDL）较高的州的公司以及处于低信贷水平的州的公司，劳动力调整成本对成本不对称的影响更加明显。 。一起，