Determinantes para o comportamento assimétrico dos custos em empresas mineiras de capital fechado

Abstract

The research presented in this dissertation aimed to identify the determining factors for the costs’ asymmetric behavior in private companies from Minas Gerais between the years 2010 and 2019. Such research can be classified as descriptive, documentary, ex post facto and quantitative. The study population referred to private companies, and a non-probabilistic sample was selected for analysis. This sample consisted of companies that had their financial data published in the Diário Oficial of Minas Gerais Jornal over the period defined for study, provided that they are accompanied by the respective independent audit reports. In total, the sample was made up of 66 companies. Data were collected from the electronic addresses of the Receita Federal of Brasil, Open Data, Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE), Federação das Indústrias of Minas Gerais (FIEMG), Junta Comercial of Minas Gerais (JUCEMG), the brazilian regulatory agencies, as well as in the Economatica® software and, especially, those economic-financial ones made available in the Diário Oficial of Minas Gerais Jornal from the accounting statements published by the companies that made up the sample. For the analysis of these data, the techniques of descriptive statistics and regression analysis with panel data were used. In the case of models estimated based on the latter technique, three cost proxies were selected for the development of the study, namely: costs of goods sold (COGS), selling, general and administrative (SG&A) expenses and total cost (TC). In addition, ten variables representing the factors that determine the asymmetric cost behavior according to the literature were selected and calculated: companies' cost structure, free cash flow, company size, asset intensity, debt intensity, deliberate decisions of managers about future sales levels, macroeconomic growth, magnitude of variations in net sales revenue, fixed-price regulation and delay in cost adjustments. It should also be noted that the models were estimated considering the entire period (2010-2019), as well as for a period of economic growth (2010-2014) and recession (2015-2019). The results indicated that the SG&A expenses proxy would not be as adequate as the COGS and TC for the estimated models. They observed evidence of sticky cost in different time horizons and cost proxies. It was found that the following six factors influenced the sticky cost of the companies studied in different models: free cash flow, managerial pessimism about future sales levels, macroeconomic growth, small revenue changes, asset intensity and fixed-price regulation. It should be noted that different variables showed different results depending on whether they were a period of economic growth or not. In addition, it was found that the asymmetry is smaller when longer periods of time are analyzed due to the delay in cost adjustments. It is expected that the results of this research will contribute to: (a) academia – verifying which proxies related to sticky cost are better adapted to the economic and management particularities of private companies; (b) management of organizations – eliminating, reducing or adjusting the costs that are impacted by variations in their activities; and (c) all other stakeholders involved – make forecasts of the behavior of the company's costs in relation to revenue.