IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/por/fepwps/199.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Aggregation in activity-based costing and the short run activity cost function

Author

Listed:
  • Samuel Cruz Alves Pereira

    (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto)

Abstract

This paper first identifies the conditions that support the construction of an aggregate output, i.e. the conditions under which a single measure of output can be used to accurately determine cost object incremental costs within a cost pool. This is a significant issue which has not been fully explored in the management accounting literature. Two conditions are jointly necessary and sufficient. The first one is the linear homogeneity property associated with each cost object production function. This condition ensures that costs are linear with output, which is essential if the cost reported by an activity-based costing (ABC) system is also to be a relevant cost for decision?making. The second is that all (cost object) cost driver rates for a given cost pool are equal. This condition guarantees that the cost function at a given activity depends on only one cost driver. The short run structure of ABC is also introduced. It is shown that the fundamental ABC property of linearly between costs and output does not generally hold in the short run, even assuming that technologies are linearly homogeneous. Only under very particular conditions, such as when inputs are combined in completely fixed proportions, are short run costs linear with output.

Suggested Citation

  • Samuel Cruz Alves Pereira, 2006. "Aggregation in activity-based costing and the short run activity cost function," FEP Working Papers 199, Universidade do Porto, Faculdade de Economia do Porto.
    • Handle: RePEc:por:fepwps:199
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fep.up.pt/investigacao/workingpapers/06.01.26_WP199_samuel.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chambers,Robert G., 1988. "Applied Production Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521314275, November.
    2. Hall, Robert E, 1973. "The Specification of Technology with Several Kinds of Output," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(4), pages 878-892, July-Aug..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Butler, James R. G. & Furnival, Colin M. & Hart, Ruth F. G., 1995. "Estimating treatment cost functions for progressive diseases: A multiproduct approach with an application to breast cancer," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 361-385, August.
    2. Herve Guyomard & Chantal Le Mouël & U. Vasavada, 1993. "Applying duality theory in agricultural production economics as a basis of policy decision making [[Application de la théorie de la dualité en économie de la production agricole : utilisation pour ," Post-Print hal-02850915, HAL.
    3. Kenneth Stewart, 2009. "Non-jointness and scope economies in the multiproduct symmetric generalized McFadden cost function," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 161-171, December.
    4. Roibas, David & Arias, Carlos, 2004. "Endogeneity Problems in the Estimation of Multi-Output Technologies," Efficiency Series Papers 2004/06, University of Oviedo, Department of Economics, Oviedo Efficiency Group (OEG).
    5. Gilligan, Daniel O., 1998. "Farm Size, Productivity, And Economic Efficiency: Accounting For Differences In Efficiency Of Farms By Size In Honduras," 1998 Annual meeting, August 2-5, Salt Lake City, UT 20918, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Jongeneel, Roelof A. & Ge, Lan, 2005. "Explaining Growth in Dutch Agriculture: Prices, Public R&D, and Technological Change," 2005 International Congress, August 23-27, 2005, Copenhagen, Denmark 24573, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    7. Paul, Saumik, 2019. "A Decline in Labor's Share with Capital Accumulation and Complementary Factor Inputs: An Application of the Morishima Elasticity of Substitution," IZA Discussion Papers 12219, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Massimo Filippini & Cornelia Luchsinger, 2007. "Economies of scale in the Swiss hydropower sector," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(15), pages 1109-1113.
    9. Peterson, Jeffrey M. & Boisvert, Richard N. & de Gorter, Harry, 1999. "Multifunctionality and Optimal Environmental Policies for Agriculture in an Open Economy," Working Papers 127701, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.
    10. Cai, Yiyong & Newth, David & Finnigan, John & Gunasekera, Don, 2015. "A hybrid energy-economy model for global integrated assessment of climate change, carbon mitigation and energy transformation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 381-395.
    11. Andreas Stephan, 1997. "The Impact of Road Infrastructure on Productivity and Growth: Some Preliminary Results for the German Manufacturing Sector," CIG Working Papers FS IV 97-47, Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin (WZB), Research Unit: Competition and Innovation (CIG).
    12. V. Vandenberghe, 2018. "The Contribution of Educated Workers to Firms’ Efficiency Gains: The Key Role of Proximity to the ‘Local’ Frontier," De Economist, Springer, vol. 166(3), pages 259-283, September.
    13. Miguel A. Delgado & Jordi Jaumandreu & Ana Martín Marcos, 1999. "Input cost, capacity utilization and substitution in the short run," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(3), pages 239-262.
    14. Tchale, H. & Sauer, J., 2007. "Soil Fertility Management and Agricultural Productvity in Malawi," Proceedings “Schriften der Gesellschaft für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften des Landbaues e.V.”, German Association of Agricultural Economists (GEWISOLA), vol. 42, March.
    15. Oleg Badunenko & Michael Fritsch & Andreas Stephan, 2006. "What Determines the Technical Efficiency of a Firm? The Importance of Industry, Location, and Size," Jenaer Schriften zur Wirtschaftswissenschaft (Expired!) 33/2006, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    16. David Van Dijcke, 2022. "On the Non-Identification of Revenue Production Functions," Papers 2212.04620, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    17. Espinoza, Héctor & Kling, Gerhard & McGroarty, Frank & O'Mahony, Mary & Ziouvelou, Xenia, 2020. "Estimating the impact of the Internet of Things on productivity in Europe," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 116391, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Margarita Genius & Spiro Stefanou & Vangelis Tzouvelekas, 2009. "Productivity Growth and Efficiency under Leontief Technology: An Application to US Steam-Electric Power Generation Utilities," Working Papers 0913, University of Crete, Department of Economics.
    19. Shumway, C. Richard & Davis, George C., 2001. "Does consistent aggregation really matter?," Australian Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society, vol. 45(2), pages 1-34.
    20. Mehdi Farsi & Aurelio Fetz & Massimo Filippini, 2007. "Benchmarking and Regulation in the Electricity Distribution Sector," CEPE Working paper series 07-54, CEPE Center for Energy Policy and Economics, ETH Zurich.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    activity-based costing; aggregate output; cost driver; multi-output technologies; short run activity cost function;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M41 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Accounting - - - Accounting

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:por:fepwps:199. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fepuppt.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.