Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Management Accounting Theory
Winter Term 2010
Package 1
Prof. Alfred Luhmer
Text Book
Joel S. Demski: Managerial Uses of Accounting
Information, 2nd edition, (Springer) 2008
Supplementary Material
John A. Christensen & Joel S. Demski:
Accounting Theory, (McGraw‐Hill) 2003 (out‐
of‐print)
Jerold L. Zimmerman: Accounting for Decision
Making and Control, 6th edition, (McGraw‐Hill)
2009.
2
Contents
1. Introduction
2. The Economic Model of Operations
3. Accounting Modeling of Operations
4. Traditional Cost Accounting versus Activity‐
Based Costing
3
Chapter 1
Introduction
This chapter first gives a brief characterization of the Concept of
Accounting and then states the purpose of this course. The aim is to
develop a coherent explanation of the functioning of Accounting as a
source of financial information in organizations. The explanation must
include uncertainty and the fact that information acquisition and
processing are costly activities and themselves subject to decision
making. Accounting is but one source of financial information competing
with and complementing other sources. Organizations – by definition –
perform multi‐task operations. The explanation has to include how
Accounting deals with that fact. Finally, this introduction delineates the
role of economic theory for the approach pursued in what follows.
Concept of Accounting
Accounting: An organizational device documenting
and processing information on
¾ past transactions and
¾ expectations as well as targets concerning future
transactions established in the organization
in monetary terms.
Accounting is
¾ partly retrospective:
• it documents facts on transactions in the past
¾ partly prospective:
• it may comprise budgets concerning results of future
transactions.
5
What Accounting has to Offer
Accounting is a language (“the language of business”) apt to
¾ convey facts on the financial progress of an organization
¾ discuss presumable consequences of actions.
Accounting represents financial consequences of actions
¾ Actions entail usage and generation of resources along with
financial transactions. Accounting allows to systematically and
comprehensively trace the financial consequences conditioned
on hypothetical external influences.
¾ Post facto the external influences realize and the outcome is
uniquely determined.
Accounting provides an organized repository of financial
data, intentionally protected against error and fraud.
¾ It is usually based on double entry bookkeeping and uses devices to
prevent unauthorized alteration
6
The Question in Focus
How is Accounting used by Management and why is it
used this way?
¾ It is not intended here to figure out how Accounting should
be used or performed
• this question is the focus of Accounting Regulation
– Regulation intends to establish consensus among experts on how
financial reporting should be done
¾ No account of specific Accounting techniques used or
proposed to be used in practice is given here
• as do most of the Accounting text books
The aim is to understand the role of accounting in the
organization and how and why Accounting survives
contrary to ubiquitous blame for being useless.
7
Challenges to the Explanation
Outcomes of actions are uncertain.
¾ Accounting is considered an information source. Information
assumes lack of knowledge, i.e. uncertainty. Information
decisions need to be included in the explanation.
Accounting is an information source among others.
¾ The role of accounting in the entire information system needs
explanation. Its specific strengths have to be tied to its
specific characteristics.
Operations of the organization interact with each other.
¾ An organization combines different operations according to its
individual Business Model. The Business model is a concept how
to take advantage of performing different activities jointly. All
organizations are in a multi‐product business.
8
Approach
The approach pursued is based on Economic Theory:
¾ Economic Theory provides another model of the operations. The
representation by the economic model acts as the reality the Accounting
model deals with.
¾ Economic Theory is used to model decision‐making under uncertainty.
Accounting information along with other information is understood as a
costly economic resource.
¾ Economic Theory is used to model the interaction of agents in
organizations, agents whose behavior is influenced if not controlled by
the performance measurement and reward system of the organization,
Accounting being a key element in this system.
The basic assumption of Economic Theory is that individual
agents rationally pursue their individual interests.
¾ This assumption allows for definite outcomes of the analysis. Of course,
the underlying reality is idealized and simplified a lot. Consequently, the
resulting picture may not be expected to have a very fine resolution.
9
Chapter 2
A Basic Model of Economic Activity
The object of accounting is economic activity. This chapter
offers a representation of this activity based on a model
developed and used in classical economic theory. The
focus of the discussion is cost and cost functions. These
notions recur in the accounting rendering of the same
activity. The accounting model builds on aggregation and
approximation of the economic model but also adds
determinants that lack economic foundation. The present
chapter discusses cost form the point of view of Economic
Theory. The presentation here chooses the concept of a
production function as its starting point.
10
Technology
Economic activity uses resources (goods and/or
services) and produces an output.
¾ The quantities of resources used are listed in a column
vector r ≥ 0,
¾ the output quantities are listed in a column vector q ≥ 0.
¾ Both q and r may contain stock as well as flow quantities.
Technologically feasible combinations of input and
output are characterized by a function F from the
input space into the output space as follows:
q ≤ F(r) (1)
¾ The function F gives the vector of maximal output
quantities that can be achieved with any given input
vector r.
11
Remark
The production function is not the only way to model
technology. Another option is linear activity analysis.
¾ This approach represents activities as vectors of input and
output quantities (distinguished from each other only by
sign) in a common vector space that can be combined with
each other according to the rules of linear spaces.
¾ Optimization of activity combination uses Linear
Programming.
The model of linear activity analysis is restricted to
constant and decreasing returns to scale.
12
Cost Function
The cost of a given output vector q at given input
prices p is defined by
C(q; p) = min {p·r|F(r) ≥ q} (2)
r
¾ p is a row vector that lists the prices of the inputs in
the same order as the quantities are listed in r.
¾ (2) means in words: the cost of output q is defined as
the minimum expense on resources required to
achieve that output.
¾ Additional restrictions, e.g. according to limited
availability of inputs (capacities) may prevail.
¾ For a solution approach to optimization problems with
inequality constraints see Appendix 1. There also an
economic interpretation is given.
The cost function represents the (minimal) cost
of output variable q at given input prices p.
13
Shephard’s Lemma
Let ri * (q; p) denote the optimal quantity of input i given
input prices p and output q, i.e. the solution of the cost
minimization problem (2). Then the cost function becomes
C (q; p) = p ⋅ r * (q; p, ) = ∑ pi ri * (q; p)
and it may be shown that i
dC (q; p)
= ri* (q; p)
dpi
¾ This means that the marginal change due to a change in the price of
an input is simply the optimal quantity of that input. This is by no
means obvious since
dC (q; p) ∂rk *
= ri (q; p) + ∑ pk
*
.
dpi k ∂pi
¾ The lemma follows directly from the Envelope Theorem with the price
vector p as the parameter and the input vector r as the decision
variable.
14
Example 1 (see text book, p. 13)
Fixed
cost
0 100 200 300 400 500 q
16
Example 2: Multiple Products*)
Assume the same asset base is used for several
products such that Fj(Lj,K) = √LjK (j = 1,…, n); K ≤ Kmax.
Let pj denote the wage rate for labor input for product j.
Cost minimization problem:
⎧ ⎫
min ⎨ pK K + ∑ p j L j | L j K ≥ q j ; L j , K ≥ 0; K ≤ K ⎬
max
L, K
⎩ j ⎭
Cost can only be minimal if the constraint qj ≤ √LjK is
2
q
binding so that Lj = j /K. Consequently, the cost
minimization problem reduces to
⎛ ⎞
pK K + ⎜⎜ ∑ p j q j ⎟⎟ / K
2
⎝ j ⎠
*) see text book, p. 40 17
Example 2 cont‘d
⎛ ⎞
Minimizing p K K + ⎜⎜ ∑ p j q j ⎟⎟ / K
2
(OF)
⎝ j ⎠
requires the derivative w.r.t. K to be zero as long as K< Kmax; i.e.
⎛ ⎞ ⎛ ⎞
pK − ⎜⎜ ∑ p j q j ⎟⎟ / K ² = 0 or pK K ² = ⎜⎜ ∑ p j q j ⎟⎟
2 2
⎝ j ⎠ ⎝ j ⎠
and, thus, finally : K * (q) = ∑ j j / pK
p
j
q 2
18
Continuation of Example 2
Assume some output combination q° and consider
the behavior of the cost function C (q; p) = 2 ∑ pK p j q 2j
j
for proportional output variations
q = αq° (α > 0) in a domain where the constraint
K≤ Kmax is not binding. Then
C (αq°; p) = 2α ⋅ ∑pj
K p jq o2
j
i.e. the cost function is linear in the scale factor α,
(the technology has Constant returns to Scale).
⎧decreasing ⎫ ⎧< ⎫
(Returns to scale are called ⎨ ⎬ if F j (αr ) ⎨ ⎬αF j (r ) ,
for α > 1, all j.) ⎩increasing ⎭ ⎩> ⎭
19
Degressive vs. Progressive Cost Functions
A cost function C(q) is called degressive
(progressive) iff C(αq) < (>) αC(q) for α > 1, all
q.
Increasing (decreasing) returns to scale entail
a degressive (progressive) cost function.
Positive fixed costs Cf together with linear
variable costs entail increasing returns to scale
and, consequently, a degressive cost function
since
¾ C(αq) < αC(q) = αCf +α (C(q) – Cf )
20
Cost Function of Ex. 2
2
If K≤ Kmax q
is binding then Lj = j /Kmax and
⎛ ⎞ max
C (q; p) = pK K + ⎜⎜ ∑ p j q j ⎟⎟ / K
max 2
(OFmax)
⎝ j ⎠
without any leeway for minimization. In this region
the cost function for scale variations is quadratic in
α.
Example 2 shows “Economies of Scope” i.e.
the cost C(q;p) of simultaneous production is always
lower than the sum of the costs C(qj;p) of isolated
production. (See Appendix 2)
21
Partial Variations of Production Program
Let q° denote a fixed production program in example 2
and consider the change in the cost of the total
program when one component, qj say, is changed.
The function C j (q j ; q− j , p) = C (q1o , q2o ,..., q j , q oj+1 ,..., qno ; p)
represents this change.
¾ Notice that a different kind of fixed cost arises here,
namely C j (0; q− j , p). This fixed cost does not stem from a
set of inputs fixed in advance. All inputs are freely variable.
Also K varies with q1 (provided K * (q1o , q2o ,...,0, q oj+1 ,..., qno ; p) )
does not yet hit the upper bound Kmax. The fixed cost here
arises from a set of predetermined outputs.
¾ The following slide shows cost functions for partial program
variations (three identical products, pL = 1, pK = 4,
Kmax = 150)
22
Fixed Cost
Both kinds of fixed costs encountered until now may be
attributed to some predetermined decision, s say,
either on an input quantity or fixed output quantities.
¾ In both cases fixed costs may be written in the form C(0; s, p)
or Cj(0; s, p).
¾ Erich Schneider had this kind of fixed cost in mind when he
emphasized the “Dispositionsbestimmtheit der fixen Kosten”
(1952; p.98)
Another kind of fixed cost may occur due to input
indivisibility entailing steps in the cost function. This
kind is termed step costs and is ignored here.
23
Terminology
Let s denote predetermined values of a set of decision variables,
δ any positive number and δ be any nonnegative vector in the
output space. Then define
¾ the incremental cost of an additional quantity δ of output j at output
combination q, given predetermined decision s as
Cj(qj + δ ; q– j ,p,s) – Cj(qj ; q– j ,p,s) (see above).
¾ the incremental cost of additional output δ at output combination q,
given predetermined decision s as C(q + δ ; p,s) – C(q; p,s).
C(δ ; q– j , p, s) – C(0; q– j, p, s) is called the variable cost of δ,
given q– j and s.
If C is differentiable at q define the marginal cost of product j at
∂C (q; p, s ) C (q + δei ; p, s ) − C (q; p, s )
q, given s as MC j ( q ; p , s ) = = lim
∂q j δ →0 δ
dC j ( q j ; q − j , p , s )
=
dq j 24
Average Cost per Unit
defined only for one‐dimensional output:
¾ AC(q; s, p) = C(q; s, p)/q
¾ VAC(q; s, p) = (C(q; s, p) – C(0; s, p))/q
is termed Variable Cost per Unit.
For both of these unit costs it holds true that
¾ If MC(q;y) >< (V)AC(q;y) then (V)AC is increasing
decreasing
at q. AC
VAC
MC
q 25
Cost Functions for Partial Program Variation
dashed lines indicate the q1 level at which K*(q1) = Kmax
C((q1,100,100)';(1,4)')
C((q1,100,0)';(1,4)')
C((q1,0,0)';(1,4)')
264 282 26
Variable Cost for Partial Program Variation
dashed lines indicate the q1 level at which K*(q1) = Kmax
CV((q1,100,100)';(1,4)')
CV((q1,0,0)';(1,4)')
CV ((q1,100,0)';(1,4)')
264 282 27
Analysis
Observe the tradeoff between fixed and variable
cost: higher fixed cost allows for lower variable cost
¾ this holds for the short run cost function (capacity cost)
¾ as well as for partial program variation under economies of
scope
Under economies of scope fixed cost cannot be
attributed to individual products
¾ the cost function C(q;p) cannot be separated as a sum of
cost functions for individual products Cj(qj;p).
¾ even the variable cost of any individual product depends
on the entire production program.
28
Marginal Cost as a First Order
Approximation to Incremental Cost
Marginal cost of product j can be defined as the
derivative of the incremental cost function or –
equivalently – as the partial derivative of the cost
function w.r.t. the output quantity qj.
¾ This means that marginal cost of any product j depends not
only on its own output quantity qj but also on the entire
production program q.
For δ sufficiently small the incremental cost can be
(linearly) approximated by δ MCj(q;p).
¾ This approximation is used in Accounting; it is also used as a
basis for first order optimality conditions.
¾ Notice: The first order approximation is good only in a small
neighborhood of the production program or if marginal cost
does not change much. 29
Shadow Prices
Generalize the problem of determining the cost
function: Maximize f(x) s.t. some constraint g(x) ≤ b.
Let x*(b) denote the optimal solution, which – in
general – will depend on b.
The function v(b) := f(x*(b)) is called the value
function of the restriction. Its derivative v′(b) is
called the shadow price of the restriction.
¾ Note that marginal cost is the shadow price of the
production constraint F(r) ≥ q in the definition of the cost
function (see above).
¾ More on shadow prices can be found in Appendix 1 .
30
Example 3: Profit Maximization
Extend Example 2 such that product j can be sold at given price Pj. Then the
following profit maximization problem arises:
⎧ ⎫
Π ( p, P ) = max ⎨∑ Pj q j − C (q; p)⎬
q
⎩ j ⎭
This problem is well‐behaved only for a constrained capital stock, i.e. for
K ≤ Kmax. If optimal output is positive at all then the optimal capital input
will be at the upper limit.
¾ This is due to the constant returns to scale property of the technology without
the size constraint.
The profit maximization problem then can be formulated as
⎧⎪ ⎛ ⎞ max ⎫⎪
Π ( p, P ) = max ⎨∑ Pj q j − pK K − ⎜⎜ ∑ p j q j ⎟⎟ / K ⎬
max 2
q ⎪ ⎪⎭
⎩ j ⎝ j ⎠
max) above)
⎧ ⎛ p jq j ⎞ ⎫ (see (OF
= max ⎨∑ ⎜⎜ Pj − max ⎟⎟q j − pK K ⎬
max
q
⎩ j ⎝ K ⎠ ⎭ 31
Optimal Program
Recall the problem formulation
⎧ ⎛ p jq j ⎞ ⎫
Π ( p, P ) = max ⎨∑ ⎜⎜ Pj − max ⎟⎟q j − pK K ⎬
max
(PM)
q
⎩ j ⎝ K ⎠ ⎭
¾ The first‐order optimality conditions require that the partial
derivatives w.r.t. the output quantities qj be zero. This entails
⎧ Pj K max
⎪ if fixed cost is covered
qj = ⎨ 2pj
*
⎪
⎩0 otherwise
Substituting this in (PM) and simplifying yields the
following expression for the optimal profit
⎧⎪ ⎛ P 2
⎞⎫⎪
Π * ( P ) = max ⎨0, K ⋅ ∑
max ⎜
− pK ⎟⎬
j (PM*)
⎪⎩ ⎜ j 4p ⎟⎪
⎝ j ⎠⎭ 32
Product Profitability
⎛ p jq j ⎞
In Example 3 the contribution margin of product j i.e. ⎜⎜ Pj − max ⎟⎟
⎝ K ⎠
depends only on exogenous data and the output quantity of that
product itself. This is not the typical situation; usually, the marginal
cost of one product may depend on the whole production program.
Then Product Profitability is meaningful only in a partial variation
sense: What happens to the entire profit due to a forced change in
the output level of product j, everything else as before?
¾ I.e. no readjustment of other output volumes are considered. We do not re‐
optimize after being forced to change output level j.
¾ Furthermore, even in the case of Example 3 product profitability depends on
the whole program because any product is only profitable when a program
can be found that covers the common cost of the asset base.
The cost of the asset base cannot be broken down to individual
products in any economically meaningful way.
33
Practical Significance of the Cost Function
Instead of using the cost function in the discussion of
Example 3 we could have solved directly the problem
max{P ⋅ q − p ⋅ r | q ≤ F (r ), q ≥ 0}
r ≤r
¾ This seems simpler at first glance. But – practically – that
means to assume that all of the information is centrally
available.
The cost function uses only the information on F and
r and the decision on the optimal program needs
only the cost function and the demand function. The
concept of the cost function serves to decentralize
marketing and production decisions.
34
Example 4: Multi‐Period Production
Specify Example 3 such that the firm
¾ acquires the asset base K at time t = 0,
¾ pays wage Lj for product j at time t = j
¾ product j is sold at a price Pj received at time t = j.
Furthermore assume that
¾ Period length is one year,
¾ the market interest rate in year t is rt.
• This means: a cash flow of one monetary unit at time t can be bought or sold
in the capital market at time τ < t for ρτt :=1/[(1 + rτ+1)(1 + rτ+2)…(1 + rt)]. The
price of a future cash flow in the present capital market (τ = 0) is called the
present value of this cash flow.
• Then, from the point of view of t = 0 future cash flows have to be replaced
ρτt
by their present value equivalents, i.e. discounted. The are called discount
factors.
In Example 3, considered at t = 0, everything remains the same
if we interpret all prices as present values.
35
Numerical Example
Assume rt = 0.1, and present values pt = 1, and Pt = t (t = 1,2,3) while
pK = 3.5 and Kmax = 1.
t
Then: q = *
t (see optimal program).
2
This entails the following sequence of cash flows:
CF0 = – pKKmax, CFt = ρ0t t²/4, specifically: ‐3.5; 1.1/4; 1.21; 1.331· 9/4
37
Economic Profit
Economic profit (economic rent) arises when an agent is able to
sell the future cash flows of an object at a price higher than
what he could get for the ingredients of the project.
¾ i.e. one must assume that not everybody is able to purchase and
combine the ingredients to form the object.
¾ This assumption is not compatible with the assumption of perfect and
complete markets for all goods.
But no contradiction arises from the assumption of a perfect and
complete market for financial claims while assuming that the
ability to combine marketable goods may not always be
marketable but incorporated in an individual or an organization.
Then it is possible for the organization to sell the project cash
flows in the capital market as soon as credible forecasts of them
can be conveyed to the public. Economic profit then can be
realized at the beginning of the project.
38
Observations on Numerical Example
Consider the sequence of Economic Incomes Yt generated by
the project according to the Numerical Example.
t = 0 t = 1 t = 2 t = 3 Σ
CF t ‐3,5 0,275 1,21 2,99475 0,97975
PV t 3,5 3,575 2,7225 0
Yt 0,35 0,3575 0,27225 0,97975
Observations
(1) The sum of the Economic Incomes is positive while NPV i.e. the
Economic Profit is zero.
(2) The sum of the Economic Incomes is equal to the sum of the cash
flows of periods 1 to T minus PV0.
(3) The Economic Income in period t is equal to the market interest on
the Continuation Present Value of the previous period.
• This observation hinges upon the fact that no economic profit occurs in period t.
(see below)
39
Why is Economic Income Equal to the Market
Interest on Previous Period’s Continuation PV?
First note that PVt = (1 + rt ) PVt −1 − CFt according to the definition of the
Continuation Present Value.
¾ PVt is simply the sum of the cash flows without the first one, no longer
discounted for the first period.
Plugging the above expression into the definition of Economic Income
yields: Yt = (1 + rt ) PVt −1 − CFt − PVt −1 + CFt = rt PVt −1
as asserted.
Interpretation: The owner of the cash flow stream earns the current
market interest rt on the Economic Value PVt–1 of that stream at the
beginning of the period.
¾ This is not an Economic Profit because it is the price for postponing
consumption of the owned present value to the end of the period. This is an
economic service (an input to the project) that costs the market price. The
service provides monetary capital (as opposed to the physical capital K).
¾ Positive Economic Income is therefore perfectly compatible with zero NPV.
40
Why Do Economic Incomes Sum up to the
Sum of Cash Flows?
This property is due to the fact that the initial Continuation
Present Value is exactly depreciated over the life time of the
project.
¾ Call Dt := PVt −1 − PVt the Economic Depreciation
T
of period t.
¾ Since PVT is always zero, it follows that ∑ Dt = PV1 (*)
t =1
¾ Economic Income Yt , however, is equal to CFt – Dt .
¾ Summing up all the Economic Incomes and accounting for (*) yields the
asserted property.
Note that, if NPV ≠ 0 this is to be considered as an
instantaneous income when the project comes into being. So
NPV=Y0 (see next slide).
41
Numerical Example Modified; Positive NPV
Assume the data as given above, except for
Pt = 1.5t (t = 1,2,3)
The sequence of cash flows, then, is
‐3.5; 1.65/4; 1.815; 1.331· 13.5/4
We get: t = 0 t = 1 t = 2 t = 3 Σ
CF t ‐3,5 0,4125 1,815 4,492125 3,219625
PV t 5,25 5,3625 4,0838 0
Yt 1,75 0,525 0,5363 0,408375 3,219625
NPV = 1.75 arises in t = 0, is income at that time.
If an economic profit occurs in a period it has to be added to the economic
income. Then observations (2) and (3) have to be modified accordingly:
¾ The sum of the economic incomes Yt (t = 0,1,2,…,T) is equal to the sum of the cash
flows CFt (t = 0,1,2,…,T).
¾ Economic income of any period t is equal to the net present value of new investment at
the end of the period plus market interest on the continuation present value at the
beginning of the period.
42
Interpretation of Economic Income
Even though the costs are not separable neither between
products nor between periods, economic income is well‐
defined for individual periods.
Economic income of a period may be interpreted as the
market value of the contributions to the enterprise on
behalf of the owners (in terms of the respective period’s
money)
¾ the net present value of new projects (entrepreneurial
contribution)
¾ the monetary capital left to the firm for the period (capitalists’
contribution)
Both of these contributions are unambiguously tied to a
definite time period.
43
Given Program: Production and Inventory
Let us return to Example 2, but now in a multi‐period
interpretation as in Example 4.
¾ Assume that a given sales program q° has to be fulfilled.
¾ Production is ruled by the square root technology.
¾ For simplicity sake ignore the restriction on physical capital.
Assume, furthermore, that products are storable such
that items produced in a previous period may used to
satisfy demand of a later period. Inventory level at the
end of period t is then defined by
t
∑ j j ) ≥ 0; (t = 1,..., T )
( q
j =1
− q o
and must be nonnegative.
44
Production and Inventory: cont’d
The problem then becomes (see Example 2)
⎧ t ⎫
C (q°) = min ⎨C (q; p) | ∑ (q j − q j ) ≥ 0 (t = 1,..., T )⎬
o
q ≥0
⎩ j =1 ⎭
⎧ ⎛ ⎞ t ⎫
= min ⎨ pK K + ⎜ ∑ pt qt ⎟ / K | ∑ (q j − q j ) ≥ 0 (t = 1,..., T )⎬
2 o
K ,q ≥0
⎩ ⎝ t ⎠ j =1 ⎭
The general solution has the following structure:
∑q 1 j∈I
o
j
46
t=0 t=1 t=2 t=3 K
pK 4 Example cont’d
pt 1,1 2,42 1,331
*
q t 2 1 2 1,5811
q° t 1 2 2 1,8028
*
CF (q )t 6,325 2,783 1,531 3,367
CF (q° )t 7,211 0,610 5,369 2,953
*
PV (q )t − 1 12,649 6,957 4,592 3,367
PV (q° )t − 1 14,422 7,932 8,054 2,953
1,773 0,975 3,463 ‐0,414
The last line in the table shows the value increase of the business due to the
storage opportunity as it develops over time.
It would be erroneous, however, to interpret this as the value of the inventory.
¾ Physical capital and inventory are inseparable: Investment in inventory decreases
the optimal size of K. Inventory and physical capital are substitutes.
• In the example this leads to higher labor costs and even a disadvantage of the storage
option in the last period.
47
Appendix 1
The standard mathematical approach to solve optimization
problems with inequality restrictions can be developed based
on the following economic “story”:
The problem to be solved: Maximize the (differentiable)
objective function Γ (x) under the constraint: A(x) ≤ b.
Furthermore all of the components of x must be nonnegative.
¾ Here x denotes a vector of decision variables, b a constant vector and
A a differentiable function of the decision variables describing
decision consequences that underlie restrictions.
Let the production manager PM be in charge to decide about x.
Now imagine a second decision maker, the CEO say, quotes a
shadow price λk for each component Ak (x) ≤ bk of the restriction
and allows PM to violate that component of the constraint
provided he accepts a charge of λk (Ak(x) – bk); on the other
hand, λk (bk− Ak (x)) is added to his objective function Γ (x) if he
does not exhaust the restriction.
Under these conditions PM may maximize Γ (x) + λ(b− A(x))
instead of Γ (x) without having to worry about constraints.
48
Appendix 1 (cont’d)
CEO will have to set λ such that the net amount λ(b− A(x)) is minimized, i.e. she
must penalize violations of restrictions prohibitively and will not pay for slack.
First order conditions for PM:
∂Γ ∂A
¾ For each decision variable xi the derivative − ∑ λk k of PM’s extended
objective function cannot be positive. ∂xi k ∂xi
Otherwise PM could make himself better off by increasing xi .
¾ If a positive value of xi is optimal then the derivative of PM’s extended objective
function must be zero. A negative derivative signals that PM could increase his
extended objective function value by reducing xi. But if xi = 0 the non‐negativity of xi
prevents him from doing so.
∂Γ ∂A
So − ∑ λk k < 0 may obtain only if xi = 0.
∂xi k ∂xi
First order conditions for CEO:
¾ λk ≥ 0, otherwise PM would get a premium on violating restriction k.
¾ λk = 0 if restriction k is inactive, i.e. if Ak (x) < bk , otherwise PM could claim a
premium for worthless slack in the constraint at the CEO’s cost.
¾ λk > 0 only if Ak (x) = bk . PM would otherwise choose to violate the kth constraint.
These conditions are known as the (Karush‐) Kuhn‐Tucker or KKT conditions. The
extended objective function is named the Lagrangean, the shadow prices λ
Lagrange multipliers.
49
Summary of the Karush Kuhn Tucker*)
conditions
∂Γ ( x ) ∂Ak ( x )
1. − ∑ λk ≤ 0;
∂xi k ∂xi
⎛ ∂Γ ( x ) ∂Ak ( x ) ⎞
2. xi ⋅ ⎜⎜ − ∑ λk ⎟⎟ = 0
⎝ ∂xi k ∂xi ⎠
3. xi ≥ 0
4. bk − Ak ( x ) ≥ 0; *) In 1951 H.W. Kuhn and A.W. Tucker published
optimality conditions for inequality constrained
5. λk ⋅ ( Ak ( x ) − bk ) = 0
optimization problems. Later on they learnt that William
Karush had derived equivalent conditions in his Master
thesis already in 1939 and proposed to rename the
6. λk ≥ 0. result that had become known as the Kuhn‐Tucker
conditions as Karush‐Kuhn‐Tucker conditions.
50
Appendix 1: Application to the Cost Function
The Lagrangean for problem (2) is L(r, λ) = − p ⋅ r − λ(q − F (r )) .
The multiplier λk measures the marginal cost of product k at a
required output combination q.
Proof:
¾ If product k is in excess supply this is trivially true since then λk = 0.
dC * ∂C dri*
¾ The cost change due to an isolated change in qk is =∑
dqk i ∂ri dqk
PM’s first order condition yields in this case
∂C ∂F dC * ∂C dri* ∂Fk dri*
∂ri
= λk k
∂ri
so that dq = ∑ ∂r dq = λk ∑ ∂r dq (*)
k i i k i i k
dC *
= λk as asserted.
dqk 51
Appendix 1: Uses of the KKT conditions
The KKT conditions allow to identify candidate optimal
solutions experimenting with the equations and testing
whether the inequalities hold.
An example where the KKT conditions are used to find
the general structure of the optimal decision even
without a numerical specification see Appendix 4.
An important application is the Envelope Theorem.
This theorem simplifies analyses of parameter‐
dependent optimization problems.
For solving numerical examples you may use the
Microsoft Excel® Solver. This software does not only
show the optimal values of the decision variables and
the optimal objective function value. It also displays
the values of the Lagrange multipliers. Furthermore
you may also directly enter equality and other
inequality constraints. 52
Appendix 2
Formally, economies of scope mean C (q; p) < ∑ C (q ; p) (ES)
j
j
We have
⎛ ⎞
C (q; p) = 2 pK ⎜⎜ ∑ p j q j ⎟⎟
2
and ⎝ j ⎠
∑ j
j
C ( q ; p ) = ∑ j j K
( 2 q
j
p p ) = 2 p K ∑ p q
j j
2
Dividing both expressions through 2 p K shows that (ES) holds
⎛ ⎞
true if and only if ⎜⎜ ∑ p j q j ⎟⎟ < ∑ p j q 2j .
2
⎝ j ⎠ j
That, however, follows from the inequality a p + b p > (a + b) p
valid for all a, b > 0 and 0 < p < 1, which is easy to prove based
on the strict concavity of the function f(x) = x p.
(For the proof see next page if interested)
53
Proof of the Inequality ap + bp > (a + b)p
Assume b > a > 0 without loss of generality
and define f(x) = xp.
For 0 < p < 1 f is strictly concave, i.e. the
derivative f ' is decreasing. Therefore we have
a a +b
(a + b) p = ∫ f ′( x)dx + ∫ f ′( x)dx
0 a
1 4243
<
6474 8
a b
< ∫ f ′( x)dx + ∫ f ′( x)dx = a p + b p
0 0
54
Appendix 3: Envelope Theorem
Consider the optimization problem
max{ Γ ( x; α ) | A( x; α ) ≤ b(α ); x ≥ 0}
x
where both the objective function and the restrictions depend
on a parameter vector α.
Assume: the optimal solution x*(α) and the optimal value of
the objective function Γ *(α):= Γ (x*(α);α) are differentiable
w.r.t. α at some value α0 of the parameter α. Furthermore, let
λ denote the vector of Lagrange multipliers associated with
the optimal solution according to the KKT conditions for the
problem for the parameter value α0.
∂Γ * (α0 ) ∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ⎛ ∂b(α0 ) ∂A( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ⎞
Then = + λ ⋅ ⎜⎜ − ⎟⎟
∂α s ∂α s ⎝ ∂α s ∂α s ⎠
for every component s of the parameter vector.
55
Interpretation
When there are no restrictions then the theorem states that
the second term on the right hand side of
∂Γ * (α0 ) ∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) dx * (α0 )
= +
∂α s ∂α s ∂x dα s
is negligible, which is true due to the first order optimality
condition ∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) = 0 .
∂x
That means when x*(α) optimizes Γ then we may neglect that
the solution x* adapts to parameter changes.
Similarly, we need not account for an adaptation of the
constraint functions A and b to a change in the solution
x*caused by a change in the parameter.
56
Proof of the Envelope Theorem
Using the chain rule we obtain
∂Γ * (α0 ) ∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂xi * (α0 )
= +∑ .
∂α s ∂α s i ∂xi ∂α s
∂x * (α0 ) ∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂xi * (α0 )
If xi * (α0 ) = 0 then also i = 0 and ∑ = 0.
∂α s i ∂xi ∂α s
Otherwise, if xi * (α0 ) > 0 then according to the first two KKT conditions we have :
∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂A ( x * (α0 ), α0 )
= ∑ λk k i .
∂xi k ∂xi
∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂xi * (α0 ) ∂A ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂xi * (α0 )
So, in any case we have = ∑ λk k i
∂xi ∂α s k ∂xi ∂α s
Substituting the expression on the right hand side of this equation for the left in (*) and
switching the order of summation yields :
∂Γ * (α0 ) ∂Γ ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂A ( x * (α0 ), α0 ) ∂xi * (α0 )
= + ∑ λk ∑ k i (**).
∂α s ∂α s k i ∂xi ∂α s
This remains true if some constraints k have slack since for these λk = 0.
57
Proof of Envelope Theorem completed
Now note that
λk ⋅ (bk (α) − Ak ( x(α), α)) = 0 for all α.
Differentiate this equality w.r.t. any component α s of α to obtain
⎛ ∂ ⎛ ∂ ∂xi (α) ⎞ ∂ ⎞
⎜
λk ⋅ ⎜ bk (α) − ∑ ⎜
⎜ Ak ( x(α), α)) ⎟
⎟ − Ak ( x(α), α) ⎟⎟ = 0
⎝ ∂α s i ⎝ ∂xi ∂α s ⎠ ∂α s ⎠
Therefore we have
⎛ ∂ ∂xi (α) ⎞ ⎛ ∂ ∂ ⎞
λk ∑ ⎜
⎜ Ak ( x(α), α)) ⎟
⎟ ⎜
= λk ⎜ bk (α) − Ak ( x(α), α) ⎟⎟
i ⎝ ∂xi ∂α s ⎠ ⎝ ∂α s ∂α s ⎠
Substituting this in (**) on the previous page completes the proof.
58
Appendix 4: Karush‐Kuhn‐Tucker Conditions for
Production Inventory Problem
⎧ t ⎫
C (q°) = min ⎨C (q; p) | ∑ q j − q j ≥ 0 (t = 1,..., T )⎬
o
q ≥0
⎩ j =1 ⎭
⎧ ⎛ 2⎞
t ⎫
= min ⎨ pK K + ⎜ ∑ pt qt ⎟ / K | ∑ q j − q j ≥ 0 (t = 1,..., T )⎬
o
K ,q ≥0
⎩ ⎝ t ⎠ j =1 ⎭
Lagrangean: pKK + (p1 q12 +…+ pt q22 +…+ pT qT2 )/K
o
+ λ1( q1 – q1) +…
The Lagrangean is set up
+ λt(q1 + ... + qt − q1 − ... − qt )+… so that a violation of a
o o
59
Appendix 4: KKT Conditions: Derivatives w.r.t. qt
Lagrangean: pKK + (p1 q12 +…+ pt q22 +…+ pT qT2 )/K
+ λ1( q1o– q1) +…
+ λt (q1 + ... + qt − q1 − ... − qt) +…
o o
qt = > 0 (all t )
2 pt 60
Appendix 4: Karush‐Kuhn‐Tucker Conditions for
Production Inventory Problem (cont’d)
λt is positive only in periods t in which cumulative demand
forces production up to maintain the nonnegative inventory.
So a first try at finding the solution is to assume λt = 0 (t < T). If
this assumption turns out to be true, then the numerator in
K T
the expression for the production volumes qt = ∑
2 pt j =t
λ j is the
same for all t, so that we may split up total demand according
to the proportions 1/pt . Then
∑ j / pt
q
j
o
qt = (R)
∑ (1 / p )
j
j
This solution is optimal if none of the inventory constraints is
violated.
61
Appendix 4: Karush‐Kuhn‐Tucker Conditions for
Production Inventory Problem (cont’d)
Should, however, one of the constraints be violated choose the
one of them with the smallest t and treat the problem for the
first t periods separately according to the same rule.
Then try the same for the next stock‐out period τ, say. First try
to treat the whole set of periods from 0 to τ as a set I. If rule
(R) leads to a feasible solution for 0 to τ, then it supersedes the
one for [0,…,t]. Go on in the same way until you have a
program that fits all of the constraints.
The last step then is to calculate the optimal K from (1*) above
for the optimal sequence of production volumes.
62
Summary of Chapter 2
What was achieved in the Chapter?
1. A reduced economic model of a firm was built that portrays
the following features of real economic activities:
a. Substitutable production factors
b. Constant returns to scale up to a maximum size of the physical
capital stock, beyond that limit costs rise more than proportionally.
c. Economies of scope
• are the consequence of “complementarity” between activities, these
are the reason why it makes economic sense to perform different
operations in one organization (see e.g. Roberts (2004), p. 34)
d. Multiple products or multi‐period lifetime including the role of
inventory
2. Non‐separability of costs between products resp. periods
was emphasized and demonstrated by the model.
63
3. Fundamental economic concepts of cost were introduced
and explained, some limits of applicability outlined
a. Fixed cost
b. Variable cost, incremental cost
c. Marginal cost
d. Contribution margin, Product profitability
4. Economic concepts of wealth and income measurement
were introduced and their relationships worked out
a. Continuation Present Value
b. Economic Income, Economic Profit
c. Net present value
The next chapter will introduce some accounting
counterparts of the concepts introduced and show how
accounting treats the situation of the reduced economic
model developed in this chapter.
64
Chapter 3
Accounting Modeling of
Operations
This chapter contrasts terms of the economic model of chapter 2 with their relatives in Accounting.
The economic model highlights that factor substitution and economies of scale or scope preclude
separating the costs of different products. Economies of scope, however, seem to be the essential
reason to perform a set of economic activities within one organization. Where economics insists on
logical justifiability and precision, Accounting uses aggregate measures and approximation. Contrary
to that, accounting artificially separates costs between products, organizational divisions, and time
periods.
Accounting’s main concern is data integrity, comprehensibility and traceability. Its basis is a system of
records the structure and functioning of which is subject to a system of conventional rules.
Consequently, Accounting information is not immediately apt to solve managerial decision problems,
interpretation and evaluation of its relevance for the problem at hand are needed. This chapter
describes how accounting perceives the object considered through the looking glass of economics in
chapter 2. It is meant as an orientation to the interpretation and evaluation of accounting data.
Finally a result is shown that makes accounting useful for economic valuation.
65
Accounting Records an Organization’s
Financial History
Accounting keeps a data base in which it records transactions and the
consumption of goods and services in an organization in monetary terms.
¾ A transaction is defined as the transfer of goods, services or property rights
between economic actors or organizational divisions.
The data base is purposefully organized to provide
¾ reports of a standardized format
• e.g. balance sheets and income statements
for external financial reporting purposes
and
¾ Management Accounting information (for internal purposes)
• to control management behavior and
• to support management decision making.
The primary criterion its contents has to meet: objectivity or verifiability
¾ i.e. traceability of entries according to a system of professional rules or standards.
• This is necessary if claims and liabilities in enforceable contracts are to be tied to it.
66
Management Accounting
Management decision making requires a great deal of
information not contained in the accounting data base.
Management adds contents to the Accounting data base
mostly for control purposes:
¾ An important control instrument is Budgeting.
• Budgeting sets targets for lower level management that are rooted
in the company’s business concept and strategy and its
implementation in terms of a long range financial perspective.
• The Budgeting process usually is a cyclical process of negotiation
between management levels on targets to be reached in the next
budget period. When agreement is reached then the targets are
set and enter the accounting data base. At the end of the period
actual outcomes are compared to targets and remuneration or
promotion consequences may be tied to variances between actual
achievement and targeted values.
67
Management Control Cycle
Anthony 1988, p.80
Budgeting
budget revision
Programming
Execution
Action
considering
new strategies
Evaluation
68
Management Accounting (cont’d)
The biggest part of Management Accounting*) is Cost Accounting.
Cost Accounting has two functions:
¾ supporting management decision making on production and sales program
¾ controlling management performance, ensuring operational efficiency.
The latter function usually is the much more important one in
practice.
The core problem of cost accounting is that the proper economic
cost function is not known to the practitioner. So the cost
accountant must resort to some imperfect substitute.
¾ What this looks like and how it compares to the economic cost function will
be discussed in the next few pages.
*) as you might infer from an inspection of the major text books in the field.
69
Accounting and Economic Cost Functions
As a starting point imagine a multi‐product cost function with well‐
defined marginal costs everywhere (like in Example 2, above).
¾ The marginal cost for each product depends on the output levels of all of the
products.
¾ The partial variation cost functions are nonlinear in general
¾ The economic cost function is the result of an optimization that depends on the
current factor prices. An exact cost function thus would have to distinguish a big
number of input factors.
Cost Accounting – on the contrary – reduces the model of “cost
behavior” as follows:
¾ Input factors are aggregated in cost pools and assigned to cost objects the same
way.
¾ Individual cost objects are considered as independent. Inseparable costs are
allocated to them using quantitative allocation bases.
¾ Each input component is considered an affine linear (i.e. constant plus linear)
function of output quantities (Local Linear Approximation).
70
Purpose of Product Costing
There are two main purposes of product costing:
1. Inventory valuation for financial reporting
¾ Inventory valuation considers only production cost including
production‐related administrative costs; selling and general
administrative costs are considered as period costs.
¾ For inventory valuation US GAAP as well as IFRS prescribe full cost
allocation (Absorption Costing)
¾ For inventory valuation product‐related non‐manufacturing costs
may be considered as period costs.
2. Decision relevant cost
¾ comprises also distribution and product‐related selling cost as far as
they are affected by program decisions
¾ they are also relevant ex post for control purposes
71
Absorption Costing
Absorption Costing allocates all manufacturing costs to
individual products.
¾ The typical “product” is a specific manufacturing job to which direct
costs are traced.
¾ For each indirect cost pool (“Overhead”) an allocation base is defined
and an “overhead rate” (= amount in the cost pool / total units of the
allocation base).
• Allocation bases are traceable to products
• Overhead cost (in pool) allocated to the product =
= units of pool‐specific allocation base traced to product
× pool‐specific overhead rate.
• Common allocation bases are e.g.
– direct labor costs
– machine hours used for the job
72
“Decision Relevant” Cost
Decision relevant cost is required to evaluate decisions
beforehand as well as in retrospect.
Accounting data serve as a basis to estimate incremental
cost as a substitute for marginal cost used in the first‐order
optimality condition (marginal cost = marginal revenue).
¾ The incremental cost of a cost object is the additional cost that
has to be incurred for the cost object. Incremental cost, in the
sense of economics, presupposes re‐optimization. Accounting
discards re‐optimization.
¾ Incremental cost is similar to marginal cost in that it depends on
the basic situation (i.e. the total program).
Incremental cost is compared to incremental revenue in
order to evaluate a cost object.
73
Cost Objects and Cost Pools
Basic for the design of any cost accounting system is the choice
of the set of primary cost objects, the objects for which the
costs are to be measured.
Accounting records factor costs in separate categories or
primary cost pools. A primary cost pool collects entries of all
factor consumptions in its category during the accounting
period.
Costing a cost object is carried out by allocating costs from cost
pools to the account of the object.
¾ A cost pool may be represented by an account collecting debit entries
from financial accounting or other cost pools and is credited by entries
debited to cost objects.
¾ The Allocation procedure may use intermediate cost objects that are at
the same time secondary cost pools.
74
Cost Pools and Cost Objects
z Cost Pools z Cost objects
Assignment
direct cost of A A
Tracing
direct cost of B B
If B is an activity
used exclusively
Allocation by O then its cost
indirect costs can also be traced to
O
O
75
Types of Cost Pools
Product cost pool: collects costs that are associated to any set
of products.
¾ Direct Product Cost Pool: a product cost pool that is associated with a
single product
• i.e. direct costs are traceable to a single product
¾ Indirect Product Cost Pool: collects product costs that are not directly
traceable to individual products but allocated to them according to an
allocation base to be determined as part of the accounting system
Expenses that are neither traceable nor allocated to products
are associated with the time period
Matching Principle: Product costs are expensed in the period
in which the revenue is realized, period‐related expenses are
charged against the income of the period.
76
Allocation
The aim is to allocate as much cost as reasonable to saleable
products.
¾ What is reasonable depends on judgment; approximating short‐run
marginal cost will allocate fewer cost items than approximating long‐run
marginal cost, because more items can be adapted to a change in
quantities in the long run.
Allocation means to determine for each pair (i,j) of cost pools a
proportion aij of pool i to be allocated to pool j. Each saleable
product has its specific cost pool.
¾ In general, this may lead to a system of simultaneous linear equations
for the total costs of the pools.
¾ Fixed costs in a pool may or may not be allocated
¾ Unallocated costs are period costs.
Cost Allocation is specific to Accounting, it disregards non‐
separability of costs between objects.
77
Allocation between Pools
x12 xn2 x1n x2n
P1 H1 x P2 Hn x H1 x H2 x Pn
1 n 1 2
xi: Quantity measure of object i
xij
Σ a H +P =H
i ij i j j
Pi : direct cost, Pool i
Hi : total cost, Pool i 78
Design of a Costing System
1. Choose the set of products, the cost of which the
system is to measure.
2. Define a system of cost categories (accounts) and rules
that determine the allocation of any consumption of
externally procured production factors to one and only
one account. Each category can be considered as a cost
pool.
¾ Costs in a pool may either be directly traced to a product (if
possible) or chosen to be allocated indirectly to products or
not allocated at all.
3. Determine a set of quantitative allocation bases for
each indirect product cost pool and set the part of the
cost not to be allocated at all.
79
Interpretation
Step 1 is the fundamental decision on the measurement objects. It
determines the range of demand for information the system will be
able to satisfy. A higher or lower degree of aggregation may be chosen.
Step 2 again decides on aggregation. For each kind of factor
consumption a decision has to be made whether to collect data on
how much of it was used for the individual products or whether to
allocate the respective cost indirectly.
Step 3 defines an affine linear function Ci = Ci0 + Σj cij xij as a model
intended to explain the amount Ci of cost in pool i with explanatory
variables xij. The parameters Ci0 and the cij are intended to provide a
good local linear approximation (LLA) of the economic cost function.
Note that linear approximations always ignore interdependencies of
the explanatory variables.
¾ The xij might be product quantities or any other common quantifiable
characteristics of the products or other cost objects j to which the costs are to
be allocated such as direct labor cost, machine hours or the like.
80
Example of an LLA
A manufacturer of furniture has a cost pool “Auxiliary supplies”.
This cost pool takes the cost of glue, varnish, screws, other
fixtures, brushes, cleaning cloth and similar supplies. This cost
has been decided to be treated as indirect product cost. 20% of
the total cost are estimated to be fixed, 50% are allocated to
products according to direct materials cost, the rest is allocated
according to direct labor cost.
¾ Total direct materials cost was x1 = 12 500, total direct labor cost
amounted to x2 = 18 750, total auxiliary supplies cost was Ci = 2 500.
¾ Then ci1 = 0.3∙2 500 / 18 750; ci2 = 0.5∙2 500 / 12 500.
¾ How much of the cost of auxiliary supplies is allocated to a table that
required direct materials costs of 75 and direct labor costs of 87,50?
» Answer: 11.75
This is a possible Cost Accounting estimate of the incremental
cost of auxiliary supplies for this table.
81
Procedure to Determine LLAs
Distribute the cost in the pool between fixed
portion Ci0 and the amounts Cij to be
allocated using the allocation bases j and
divide the results by the total value of the
respective allocation base xj to obtain the
allocation rate or “charge rate” cij = Cij/xj per
unit of the allocation base.
If a cost object k has used amounts of xjk of
allocation bases j, then it gets allocated an
amount of Σj cij xjk of the indirect cost item i.
82
Cost Accounting View
of Example 3 from Chapter 2
Consider first the single‐period case.
The accounting system records at the end of the
period
¾ the revenue Σj Pj qj
¾ the consumption of the production factors as pj Lj and pKK.
¾ The factor cost is recorded as the amount of the payment
for the factor.
• Note that the accounting concept of cost is different from the economic
concept. E.g. if one unit of factor K is used outside the optimal plan then
the economic cost of this is the out‐of‐pocket cost of this unit plus the
decrease in profit resulting from the fact that the optimal program has to
be adapted to the lower capacity. This is the so‐called opportunity cost. For
factors with unrestricted availability economic cost is equal to accounting
cost.
83
On Product Profitability
Chapter 2 emphasized that contribution margins of products intended to
measure product profitability are meaningful only for a forced partial
variation of the volume of that product without re‐optimization of the
rest of the program.
In Accounting two approaches are common to deal with this:
¾ either refuse entirely to attempt to trace costs to products
¾ or abstract from the interdependencies and show contribution margins of
individual products, leading to the display below.
Product 1 … Product j … Product n Total
Revenue P1q1 … Pj qj … Pn qn Σj Pj qj
Expenses
Labor 1 p1L1 p 1L 1
…
Labor j pj Lj pj Lj
…
Labor n … … pn Ln
Margin P1q1 – p1L1 Pjqj – pjLj Pnqn – pnLn
Expenses
Capital pK K
Accounting Income: Σj (Pj qj – pj Lj ) – pK K
84
Unit Cost and Unit Contribution Margins
Unit costs are used as approximations to the marginal costs.
Unit Contribution margins are used to approximate the excess
of net sales price over marginal cost
¾ products with negative unit contribution margin are supposed to
decrease profit and – if no superior points of view are raised against
that – phased out of the program.
¾ This policy may be often economically justified if there are
• no increasing returns to scale
• no increasing marginal returns
• nor positive external effects of the product to be phased out neither on the cost
nor on the demand side.
Furthermore, accountants argue in favor of their method that
¾ cost functions are not usually verifiable
¾ re‐optimization might be more costly than the improvement
achievable.
85
Income Calculation
For the example assume machine hours as the allocation base
for physical capital; then we get “product‐related accounting
incomes”
Product 1 … Product j … Product n Total
Machine hrs used X1 xj xn x
Revenue P1q1 … Pj qj … Pn qn Σj Pj qj
Expenses
Labor 1 p1L1 p1L1
…
Labor j pj Lj pj Lj
…
Labor n … … pn L n pn Ln
pK K pK K pK K
Capital used x1 xj xn pKK
x x x
⎛ T ⎞
The question arises, how to determine the αt . ∑ t ⎟
⎜ α = 1
⎝ t =1 ⎠
Cash basis recognition would set α1 = 1, accrual accounting
would expense pKK gradually over time. 88
Depreciation
Accounting records the expenditure pKK for physical capital in
the period of acquisition. pKK is the initial book value B0.
The book value decreases by a certain amount dt each period t
of the lifetime T: Bt = Bt–1 – dt . dt is called accounting
depreciation of the equipment for period t. dt is expensed in
period t.
¾ Note the formal analogy to economic depreciation.
¾ Depreciation applies the idea of absorption costing to the multiple‐
period case. That’s why BT = 0.
¾ Note, however, the difference in information available:
• while the number of units of the allocation base traced to each product is
known in the single‐period case, it is not in the multi‐period case (at least
for the financial statements before the end of the life time).
• That’s why accounting depreciation is determined schematically, e.g. by
equal amounts per period (“straight line” method) or by a fixed percentage
of book value (“declining balance” method) allocated to the period.
89
Cash Basis vs. Accrual Accounting (cont’d)
Consider the numerical example on optimal production with
the storage option from chapter 2. Additionally assume that
the products are sold at a price of P = 3·(1 + r) t in period t.
¾ the display below shows cash basis accounting for this example
t=0 t=1 t=2 t=3 Total
Revenue 3.300 7.260 7.986 18.546
Expenditure
Capital 6.325 6.325
Labor 2.783 1.530 3.367 7.681
Accounting Income: ‐6.325 0.517 5.730 4.619 4.541
Economic Income: 2.137 0.214 0.867 0.903 4.541
¾ no book values of assets arise
¾ accounting incomes for individual periods seem meaningless
The next page shows an accrual accounting rendering of the
same example.
¾ Physical capital is depreciated according to usage. 90
Example: Accrual Accounting
t=0 t=1 t=2 t=3 Total
Physical capital Bt 6.325 3.795 2.530 0
Book value inventory 0 2.656 0 0
Total Assets: 6.325 6.452 2.530 0
Continuation PV 8.675 9.026 4.199
Revenue 3.300 7.260 7.986 18.546
Cost pools
Depreciation = Bt-1 – Bt 2.530 1.265 2.530 6.325
Labor cost 2.783 1.530 3.367 7.680
Total period cost 5.313 2.795 5.897
accrued to Inventory 2.656 0 0
To cost of goods sold 2.657
Cost of goods sold 14.005
Current 2.657 2.795 5.897
From inventory 0 2.656 0
Accounting Income: 0.643 1.809 2.089 4.541
Economic Income: 2.137 0.214 0.867 0.903 4.541
91
Accrual Accounting: Basic Idea
Cash Basis Accounting: Cash Inflows of each period are recognized as positive,
cash outflows as negative components of period’s accounting income.
Accrual Accounting is based on cash flows too, but modifies the timing of
recognition:
¾ Recognition of Revenue: according to the Realization Principle as explained above.
Cash inflows that are not yet earned (i.e. the output has not yet been produced) are
deferred to the time of realization.
• i.e. a liability is recorded against the cash inflow, so that period income is unaffected.
¾ Cash outflows are classified either as asset‐creating (e.g. the physical capital or the
inventory in the example above) or as a period expense.
• Similarly to unearned revenue a cash outflow for which the equivalent has not yet been received
is compensated by introducing an asset in the balance sheet.
¾ Assets are expected to generate future benefits i.e. help generating future cash
inflows. The related cash outflows become expenses (= negative period income
components) in later periods
• either according to a depreciation plan set up at the time of acquisition (e.g. physical equipment)
• or when the asset is disposed of (e.g. inventory) or destroyed.
¾ The Matching Principle governs the timing of expenses.
• An Expense not matched to some specific future revenue is charged against income of the period
in which it occurs.
92
Accrual Accounting: Characteristics
While Cash Basis Accounting is entirely retrospective (and
thus as objective and verifiable as possible) Accrual
Accounting is – in some respect – prospective.
¾ Accruals disclose which part of the expenditure is meant to generate
future benefits
¾ Accruals indicate part of the expected future cash inflows, at least
those that are almost certain to occur.
¾ Accruals also indicate expected cash outflows before they actually
occur.
• These are specifically shown in so‐called provisions. If past decisions
become known to entail specific future cash outflows then an appropriate
amount has to be set aside against current income.
Accrual Accounting discloses information that Cash Basis
Accounting does not.
¾ but it is restricted to reporting transactions of the past, not plans or
intentions for the future.
93
Accrual Accounting: more properties
Accrual accounting usually also reacts on changes in the
market price of individual assets.
¾ An example is the lower‐of‐cost‐or‐market valuation.
• If the current sales price of a product falls below its book value
then the difference is written off and charged to the period
income. (See IAS 2, 9 and 28‐33 for details of the current EU
regulation).
¾ Another example is the valuation of “financial assets at fair value
through profit or loss” (see IAS 39, 45)
• in the case of readily marketable financial assets also unrealized
but “realizable” gains are reported in the balance sheet as well as
in the income statement.
This means that even facts beyond the sequence of cash flows
are accounted for, but only w.r.t. the timing of income effects.
94
Incentive Effect of Absorption Costing
With Absorption Costing “cost averages can even be calculated
for each product as well. Of course, this is silly, but one can do
it. (Some even do.)” (Demski 2008, p. 64).
¾ The IFRS, e.g., require absorption cost‐based unit costs for inventory
valuation (see IAS 2,10‐18).
Incentive Effects of Absorption Costing
¾ A manager deciding on the production volume may enhance period
income by excessive production to inventory.
• He thus “rescues” the fixed costs from being expensed in the current
period. This may make sense when the production capacity is scarce,
such that the inventory enables additional sales in the next period or
when variable cost is expected to rise. Inventory, however, is a risky
asset. It may become obsolete or destroyed before it can be utilized.
Usually, therefore, the incentive to build inventory will be
unwarranted.
95
Formal Concept of Accrual Accounting
The cash flow series CF = [CF0, CF1,…, CFt,…, CFT] to the
owners along with the sequence of interest rates rt may be
considered the essence of the financial history of an all equity
enterprise.
¾ these data determine the sequence of continuation present values
and the sequence of economic incomes.
An Accounting Procedure transforms CF into a sequence of
accruals or stock magnitudes.
¾ In practice, CFs are given in a disaggregate form, based on individual
transactions. The Accounting Procedure determines a sequence of
balance sheets, formally a sequence of vectors of stock magnitudes
from a specified space. Subsequently, we consider the sequence B =
[B0, B1,…, Bt,…, BT] of the book values of aggregate net assets (=
assets – liabilities), but you could apply everything to disaggregate
balance sheet items.
96
Accounting Procedure: Properties
An (aggregate) Accounting Procedure is any
mathematical operator B that maps a sequence
(CF, r) of aggregate cash flows to owners and market
interest rates into a sequence of aggregate net assets
B(CF, r) subject to the following conditions:
¾ B0 (CF, r) = – CF0
(which means: the book value of initial net assets is the
initial cash inflow from the owners to the firm)
¾ BT (CF, r) = 0
(which means: the firm is entirely liquidated at time T )
97
Accounting Procedure: Properties (cont’d)
An Accounting Procedure determines also a sequence
I = [I1,…, It,…, IT] of (comprehensive) Accounting
Incomes as follows:
It := Bt – Bt–1 + CFt (t = 1,2,…,T) (CS)
¾ if the Income statement shows the comprehensive income
then balance sheet and income statement are said to
articulate. (CS) is also called the Clean Surplus condition.
¾ In practice this condition is not usually fulfilled. Most
accounting regulations prescribe different accounting
procedures for the balance sheet and the income
statement.
• The balance sheet is also to show (unrealized) gains and losses not
due to transactions. (See e.g. IAS 16,31‐42). The income
statement focuses income from realized business transactions.
98
Reconciliation of Accounting and Economic
Valuation (Preinreich’s Theorem)
Economic Value of a business to the owners at any time t during its life
time is defined by the continuation present value: T
. Then PVτ may be written: PVτ = ∑ CFt ρτt
1
Let ρτt :=
(1 + rτ +1 )(1 + rτ + 2 )...(1 + rt ) t =τ +1
Gabriel A.D. Preinreich discovered already in the 1930s that accounting
valuation and economic valuation can be reconciled using the concept
of “excess profit” (nowadays better known as “residual income”)
RIt := It – rtBt–1
Preinreich’s theorem then states (for a proof see Appendix 5):
T
PVτ = Bτ −1 + ∑ t τ
RI ρ t
t =τ +1
(PT)
99
Example
Consider the running example assuming cash basis accounting
t =1 t =2 t =3
B t −1 6,325 0,000 0,000 Cash Flow‐based PV calculation
CF t 0,517 5,730 4,619 0,470 4,736 3,470 8,676
dt 6,325 0,000 5,209 3,817 9,026
It ‐5,808 5,730 4,619 4,199 4,199
RI t ‐6,440 5,730 4,619
Σ Bτ PV τ
t
RI t / (1+r ) ‐5,855 4,736 3,471 2,351 6,325 8,676 τ = 0
t −1
RI t / (1+r ) 5,209 3,818 9,027 0,000 9,026 τ = 1
t −2
RI t / (1+r ) 4,199 4,199 0,000 4,199 τ = 2
¾ the physical capital was written off in the first period
¾ the continuation present values coincide with the ones calculated from
the cash flows.
100
Understanding RI Valuation
Now introduce an inventory accrual x in the accounting income
calculation (note that x = 2.656 in the example above). What
happens? Changes Effect on discounted RI
Period 1
expenses decrease by x, + x/1.1
i.e. RI1 increases by x.
Period 2
B1 increases by x,
inventory x is depleted,
i.e. RI2 decreases by
0.1 x + x – 1.1x/1.21
Period 3
no effect
Total effect: 0
What would happen, if inventory would be depleted only in
period 3? (See next page.)
101
Understanding RI Valuation, cont’d
Changes Effect on discounted RI
Period 1
expenses decrease by x,
i.e. RI1 increases by x. + x/1.1
Period 2
B1 increases by x,
i.e. RI2 decreases by
0.1 x – 0.1x/1.21
Period 3
B2 is now x instead of 0 −1.1x/1.21
i.e. RI3 decreases by = −x/1.1
0.1x – 0.1x/1.331
inventory is depleted = – x/1 .21
i.e. RI3 decreases by x – x/1.331
Total effect: 0
103
-1 previous +1 +2 +n
Financial
Income Statement
Revenues at previous period's prices 6850 7149 7436 7735
Revenues net of marketing expenses 6200 6471 6731 7001 7282
Costs of goods sold 3215 3212 3209 3206 3203
Depeciation on PPE
other capacity-related cost
Investment in system development
Operative Income before taxes
235
456
215
2353
391
456
215
2460
153
456
215
2971
60
456
215
3348
Planning and
Extraordinary revenues
extraordinary expenses
Earnings before tax
Taxes on income
15
152
2216
721
2460
800
2971
967
3348
1089
Budgeting Using
Earnings
Assets
1495 1659
-391
2004
-153
2258
-60
Pro Forma
Property, plant & Equipment at book value 600 643 252 99 39 Disinvestment?
Accounts reveivable
Inventory net of operating liabilities
Net Assets 2580
1346
670
2659
1400
697
2349
1456
725
2280
1515
754
2307
Financial
Cash Flow Statement
Earnings
Change in net assets
1495
79
1659
-310
2004
-69
2258
28
Statements
Free Cash Flow 1416 1970 2073 2231
Ratios
Gross Margin 50,36% 52,32% 54,20% 56,01%
Revenue growth rate
Growth in volume
4,37%
10,48%
4,01%
10,48%
4,01%
10,48%
4,01%
10,48% White cells are to filled
Rate of decline of selling price level 5,86% 5,86% 5,86% 5,86%
Cost reduction
Depreciation rate (PPE)
9,57%
39,17%
9,57%
39,17%
9,57%
39,17%
9,57%
39,17%
with data and planning
Turnover rate (accounts receivable)
Turnover rate (inventory, net of op. liab.)
4,81
9,66
4,81
9,66
4,81
9,66
4,81
9,66 parameters, respectively.
effective tax rate 32,54% 32,54% 32,54% 32,54%
∑ t t t −1 τ =
( I −
t =τ +1
r B ) ρ t
∑ t t −1 t
( CF −
t =τ +1
( B − B ) − rB t −1 ) ρ τ
t
T T T
= ∑ t τ+
CF ρ t
t =τ +1
∑ t τ−
B ρ t
t =τ +1
∑ t −1 τ
B
t =τ +1
ρ t −1
t =1 105
Summary of Chapter 3
The chapter first introduced Management Accounting used
1. to facilitate management’s decision making
2. to control management’s behavior
• An important control device is Budgeting. Budgeting aims at
agreements between management levels on targets to be
reached. Agreed on targets enter the accounting data base.
A major part of Management Accounting is Cost Accounting.
¾ The chapter contrasted the economic and the accounting concepts of
cost.
¾ Cost in the economic sense is the minimum sacrifice required to
achieve a given outcome. Cost accounting abstains from the attempt
of optimization.
106
¾ The economic analysis of the cost concept emphasizes non‐linearity
and non‐separability. Consequently product‐related unit costs and
product profitability are not well‐defined. The cost depends on the
entire combination of output and cannot be separated between
individual products.
¾ As opposed to that the Accounting concept of cost attempts an
approximation to economic cost using linearization and aggregation.
• Linearization leads to the concept of an activity. Activities are linear input‐output
relations that are measured using a one‐dimensional activity level. Input as well as
output, albeit multidimensional are assumed proportional to the activity level.
• Aggregation combines different inputs together into cost pools according to
traceability to cost objects of interest. Costs that are traced to an object are direct
costs of the object, costs that cannot be traced to an object may be allocated to
objects according to an allocation base.
• Absorption costing allocates all manufacturing costs, inclusive the overhead cost
and the cost of capacities to individual products.
¾ Cost allocation treats costs as if they were separable. This distorts
costs for decision purposes and also for incentives.
• e.g. absorption costing’s adverse effect on inventory building.
107
The costing reduces to estimating costs of cost objects (saleable
and intermediate products) to mimic the economic cost function
as closely as possible.
The data base provides incomplete and aggregate information
only.
Steps of the costing procedure
¾ identify cost objects and a quantity measure for each
¾ assign a cost pool to each object
¾ put traceable costs into the respective product cost pool and allocate costs
that are not directly traceable using LLAs.
¾ Calculate unit costs as an approximation of marginal cost or incremental cost.
Notice: The “solution” to the costing task is ambiguous. It
depends on judgment and is largely discretionary
¾ Even the structure, contents and detail of the data base are a matter of choice
¾ Views and reflections on which the judgment is based may be made explicit
such that the significance of the cost estimates may be understood and
assessed
108
It is important that the user of cost accounting data be aware
of the differences between economic cost and what the
accounting data base contains under the same label.
¾ (S)he should be able to understand and to find out biases in the
accounting data and account for them according to the purpose (s)he
uses them for.
Furthermore the chapter considered cash base versus accrual
accounting for financial reporting purposes. The formal
concept of an accounting procedure was introduced. It
derives from a sequence of cash flows and market interest
rates a sequence of book values and accounting incomes.
¾ The accounting procedure determines depreciation rules and can also
include other market data, e.g. in the case of the lower‐of‐cost‐or‐
market valuation.
109
Last not least the chapter introduced Preinreich’s theorem as
a relationship between accounting income, accounting book
value and economic value.
¾ The theorem says that at any time t the continuation present value is
equal to the book value at t plus the sum of the discounted future
residual incomes, provided the clean‐surplus condition holds,
• i.e. all changes of the book value are recognized as accounting income.
¾ The theorem can be used to estimate economic value based on a
sequence of pro‐forma financial statements to be developed in the
budgeting process.
¾ Residual incomes are considered important in practice as an indicator
for value‐based management.
110
Chapter 4
Traditional Cost Accounting vs.
Activity‐Based Costing
Traditional cost accounting relies mainly on tracing direct costs to products and allocates indirect
costs based on traceable input quantities or costs. Direct material costs are used as the basis for
allocating the costs of inbound logistics and direct labor cost or machine times is used as the basis for
allocating conversion costs. Selling and administrative costs are then allocated as a percentage on
total production costs.
This approach has been criticized as to have lost relevance in the contemporary economic
environment. A more detailed approach has been proposed called “Activity‐Based Costing” (ABC).
ABC uses a greater number of quantity measures and is much more complicated as the traditional
costing procedure. ABC was pioneered by Cooper and Kaplan and most of the larger corporations
tried it. Many of them, however, abandoned it later or only used it as a stand‐alone device in
restructuring projects, not with the current accounting system.
Both of these approaches use the three main tools of cost accounting, i.e. Aggregation, Local Linear
Approximation and Allocation. This chapter reviews a comparison of the two approaches as given in
Demski 2008 ch. 6 and 7. 111
Prerequisites
It is assumed that you are acquainted with the
basics as presented in an undergraduate level
course in Cost Accounting:
¾ Otherwise you may consult e.g. Horngren et al. ch.
4 and 5.
112
Traditional Approach
Traditional Cost Accounting focuses inventory
valuation at manufacturing cost.
Direct product costs, e.g.
¾ direct labor
¾ direct materials
or product‐related measures of capacity usage,
¾ e.g. machine times, labor hours,
are the preferred allocation bases.
Main Characteristic: Highly aggregated
recording and rough approximation. 113
Manufacturing Costs
Direct materials cost
= Overhead allocated according
+ Materials overhead to direct materials usage
Materials cost
+ Direct labor cost
“Conversion cost”
+ Manufacturing overhead
= Manufacturing cost
Capacity costs are either treated as period costs
(“variable costing”)
or as manufacturing overhead (“full costing”).
Cost of unused capacity is period cost. 114
Costing Systems
Actual costs
¾ Costs recorded in the cost pools during the accounting period are
allocated to the products produced in the period. This happens only at
the end of the period.
• Strictly speaking, eliminating the cost of unused capacity goes beyond
actual costing.
Normal Costing
¾ The accounting data base is used to estimate
• a normal level (xN, say) of the variable x serving as allocation base
• the expected total amount CN in the cost pool at the normal level
• and a of (pseudo‐) fixed cost at the beginning of the period.
¾ The allocation rate to be used for product costing during the period is
then
• CN /xN (full costing) or (CN – a)/xN
¾ Unallocated (– over‐allocated) actual costs at the end of the period are
either treated as period costs or allocated after the fact (IFRS wants the
latter treatment).
115
Costing Systems (cont’d)
Standard Costing
¾ Estimates of allocation rates are determined by estimating factor
prices and factor consumptions per unit of the product and standard
overhead allocation rates (of course in an aggregate fashion).
¾ Formally, the procedure is equivalent to normal costing.
¾ Standard Costing is used to calculate variances between standard and
actual costs.
• Large variances may either be due to questionable standards, to
differences between actual and standard prices, or to inefficient
operations.
• difference between actual costs and standard (or normal) costs
contains, in full costing systems furthermore, the capacity usage
variance: a·(xN – xA)/xN
• If the costing system at hand has only full costs of products and
you want to evaluate the profitability of an additional special
order account for the decrease in the capacity usage variance!
116
Full Cost System
Capacity usage variance
= a·(1 – xA/xN)
CN
actual cost
under-
“Efficiency” variance absorbed
“Absorbed” cost
a
xA xN x
117
Activity‐Based Costing
Identification of activities in the business
¾ Activities may be considered as production
subsystems on their own, characterized by a
production function
• may also occur in the “hidden factory” i.e. the
back office part of the organization
¾ Cost accounting represents them by LLAs as usual.
¾ Activities yield intermediate products that enter
end products as input.
118
Activity‐Based Costing (ABC) (cont’d)
ABC begins by partitioning the firm’s operations into a
set of activities.
¾ Activities may be considered as single product production
subsystems on their own, characterized by a production
function
• may also occur in the “hidden factory” i.e. the back office part of the
organization
• Activities yield intermediate products that enter end products as input.
¾ Cost accounting associates a cost pool with each activity and
selects an output measure (called “cost driver”) for the activity
that seems at the same time adequate as an allocation base
for the respective costs to end products and as the variable x
in the LLA chosen to approximate the activity’s cost.
119
Activity‐Based Costing (ABC) (cont’d)
ABC usually uses a larger number of cost pools than the
traditional method and chooses them such that the allocation
bases may be considered close to cost causation.
ABC is a full cost system: total cost shall be allocated to products,
but the increased number of allocation bases shall enable to
allocate them according to cost causation.
The aim is to approximate long‐run marginal costs of products.
After a phase of euphoric welcome in the consulting scene firms
have shown reluctant to introduce ABC as the regular system to
structure the accounting data base.
¾ ABC was mainly used as a stand‐alone device to support restructuring
projects.
¾ For purposes of the regular cost accounting system a simplified
approach has meanwhile be proposed (see Kaplan & Anderson 2007).
120
Time‐Driven ABC
The simplified version works as follows:
¾ The set of activities is the same as in the original version.
¾ Determine or estimate for each activity
• the monthly normal capacity xN
– capacity and its utilization is measured in time units
• the resources devoted to that capacity and their monthly
cost CN
• calculate the cost per time unit as b = CN /xN
• for each cost object that uses the activity the normal (or
standard) required time units per unit of the cost object.
Activity cost is then allocated to objects as bxij
¾ where xij denotes the number of time units of activity i
actually consumed by object j.
121
An Example (Demski, 2008, p. 145‐161)
Consider a two‐product firm with output quantities q1,
q2. Each product requires one unit of direct labor r1, r2,
respectively, per unit.
Furthermore three activities A, B, C are necessary to
produce the products, with “cost drivers” xA, xB, xC.
Product j requires as an ingredient aij qj units of “cost
driver” i∈{A,B}, while activities A and B require one
unit of cost driver C per driver unit, each.
The production functions of the activities are:
xA ≤ (r3, xCA)α, xB ≤ (r4, xCB)β, and xC ≤ (r5, r6)1/2
The next page shows the definition of the cost function.
122
Cost Function of the Example
C (q; p) = min ∑ p r
6
i =1 i i
r ≥ 0; xCA , xCB ≥ 0
s.t.
ri ≥ qi (i = 1,2) (1), (2)
α
(P)
(r3 xCA ) ≥ a A1q1 + a A 2 q2 (= x A ) (3)
(r4 xCB ) β ≥ a B1q1 + aB 2 q2 (= xB ) (4)
r5 r6 ≥ xCA + xCB (= xC )
pi denotes the purchase price of input i,
α and β (> 0) are production elasticities
123
Lagrangian and First Order Conditions
Lagrangian:
∑i =1 i i ∑ j =1 j j j 3 A1 1 A2 2 3 CA )
6 2 α
p r + λ ( q − r ) + λ ( a q + a q − ( r x )
(
+ λ4 (aB1q1 + a B 2 q2 − (r4 xCB ) β ) + λ5 xCA + xCB − r5 r6 )
First order conditions
λi = pi (i = 1,2)
p3 = λ3αr3α −1 xCA
α xC = r5 r6
p4 = λ4 βr4β −1 xCB
β
r52 p5 / p6 = xC2 ⇒ r5 = xC p6 / p5
p5 = λ5 ⋅ 12 r5−1/ 2 r61/ 2 p5 r6 ⎫ similarly : r6 = xC p5 / p6
⇒ =
p6 = λ5 ⋅ 12 r51/ 2 r6−1/ 2 p6 r5 ⎪
⎪⎪
substitute: ⎬ upon cancellation : λ5 = 2 p5 p6
λ5 = λ3r3α αxCA
α −1
r6 = p5 r5 / p6 ⎪
λ5 = λ4 r4β βxCB
β −1 ⎪
⎪⎭ 124
Optimal Inputs r3 and r4
p3r3 = αλ3 x A = αλ3 r3α xCA
α
⎫⎪ p3 r3
⎬ ⇒ p3r3 = λ5 xCA ⇔ xCA =
α
λ5 xCA = αλ3 x A ⎪⎭ λ5
α
p3 r3 α⎛ p3r3 ⎞
Substituting p3r3 = αλ3 x A in = αr3 ⎜⎜ ⎟⎟ (from the first line) yields
λ3 ⎝ λ5 ⎠
α
αλ3 x A ⎛ p r ⎞ p α 2α
r p α 2α
r p r 2
(= x A ) = αr3α ⎜⎜ 3 3 ⎟⎟ = α 3 α3 , i.e. x A = 3 α3 or x1A/ α = 3 3
λ3 ⎝ λ5 ⎠ λ5 λ5 λ5
λ5 1/ α α p3
and, finally, r3 = x . (r3 xCA ) = x A then yields xCA = x1A/ α
λ5
A
p3
λ5 1/ β p4
Similarly : r4 = x and xCB = x1A/ β
λ5
B
p4
125
Shadow Prices λ3 and λ4
λ5
Substituting the expression for r3 = x1A/ α
p3
into the first order condition p3 r3 = αλ3 x A and solving
1
for λ3 yields λ3 = p3λ5 x1A/ α
αx A
1
and, similarly λ4 = p4 λ5 x1B/ β
β xB
126
Marginal Cost
Interpretation of λi (i=1,…,4): Increase in (optimal) cost
per unit of a marginal increase in the right hand side of
restriction (i) in (P).
A marginal increase in qi induces the right hand side of
(i) (i=1,2) to increase by λi = pi per unit,
(3) by λ3 aAi and
(4) by λ4 aBi.
So the marginal cost of product i is:
MCi (q;p) = pi + λ3 aAi + λ4 aBi
a Ai 1/ α a Bi
= pi + p3λ5 x A + p4 λ5 x1B/ β
αx A βxB
where λ5 = 2 p5 p6 127
Product Costing
Both the traditional method and ABC start with the same
recorded costs (where λ5 = 2 p5 p6 ):
Cost Category Definition Optimal Amount
Direct labor for q1 p1r1 p1q1
Direct labor for q2 p2r2 p2q2
Overhead pool A p3r3 p 3 λ5 x 1A/ α {xA = (aA1q1 +aA2q2)}
Overhead pool B p4r4 p4 λ5 x1B/ β {xB = (aB1q1 +aB2q2)}
Overhead pool C p5r5+ p6r6 2 xC p5 p6 = λ5 xC {xC = (xCA + xCB)}
128
Traditional Approach
The traditional approach sees only one category of direct
costs, so everything is allocated according to direct labor cost;
there is only one overhead cost pool, containing the sum of all
overhead cost categories:
OVT = λ5 ( p3 x1A/ α + p4 x1B/ β + xC λ5 )
The (absorption) costing estimate of the marginal cost is the
unit cost: ci = pi (1+ f ) where f = OVT /(p1q1 + p2q2).
¾ The approximation of the cost function is then linear:
C(p;q) =c1q1 + c2q2
i.e. it ignores non‐separability and returns to scale (if α or β ≠ ½) .
¾ Furthermore it ignores all differences between the products and
makes the allocation totally dependent on the labor cost per unit,
clearly not a very promising solution.
129
Activity‐Based Approach
The activity‐based approach will first allocate the overhead cost
pool OVC = λ5 xC
to the users according to utilization, so that one obtains the
approximated cost function
CC ( xC ) = f C xC where f C = OVC / xC = λ5
The allocation of OVC results in the overhead cost pools:
OVA = p3λ5 x1A/ α + f C xCA = p3λ5 x1A/ α + λ5 p3 x1A/ α / λ5
= 2 p3λ5 x1A/ α
and, similarly,
OVB = 2 p4λ5 x1B/ β
These are allocated using xA and xB respectively; this leads to the
following (absorption) cost estimates:
2 1/ α 2
fA = p3λ5 x A ; fB = p4 λ5 x1B/ β
xA xB 130
Unit Costs Compared to Marginal Costs
The unit costs of the products then become
ci = pi + aAi fA + aBi fB
2a Ai 1/ α 2aBi
= pi + pλx
3 5 A + p4 λ5 x1B/ β
xA xB
a Ai 1/ α aBi
MCi = pi + pλx + p4 λ5 x1B/ β
αx A βxB
3 5 A
136
Marginal revenue (MRj) : the rate of change of
revenue of product j (Rj) w.r.t. sales quantity qj.
Prices depend on sales quantities. In general qj
influences the prices pk of all the other
products k. Assuming a joint price response
function p = p(q) we have
R (q ) = p (q ) ⋅ q
∂pk
MR j (q ) = p j + ∑ qk
k ∂q j
137
Matching Principle
Net Assets: sum of accounting assets minus liabilities.
Net Present Value (NPV)
The (timeτ ) Present Value of a sequence of Cash Flows CFt is
defined as the following sum: ∑ CFt ρτt
ρτ t t
The herein are the prices of one monetary unit, payable at
time t, in the capital market at time τ.
ρ t −1
ρτt
The prices define period interest rates rt = τ t − 1 .
ρτ
Profit, Economic Profit (period t): the difference between
actual economic income (period t) and the interest on PVt–1.
Economic profit at the beginning of a project is its Net Present
Value. In later periods economic profit could only occur due to
a change in the projected cash flows. This is excluded under
certainty.
138
Realization
Returns to Scale
Transaction
Unit Cost
Verifiability: A measurement is verifiable if there is a defined
procedure that leads to the result based on objective data.
Verifiability requires an audit trail to be present.
Wealth
139
References
Anthony, Robert N.(1988)
¾ The Management Control Function, Harvard Business School Press, Boston
(Mass.)
Hirshleifer, Jack (1970)
¾ Investment, Interest, and Capital, Prentice Hall.
Horngren, Charles, T., Srikant M. Datar & George Foster (122005)
¾ Cost Accounting, Prentice Hall.
Johnson, H. Thomas & Robert S. Kaplan (1987)
¾ Relevance Lost – The Rise and Fall of Management Accounting, Harvard
Business School Press
Kaplan, Robert S. & Anderson, Steven R. (2007)
¾ Time‐Driven Activity‐Based Costing, Harvard Business School Publishing
brief introduction: here
Kaplan, Robert S. & Cooper, Robin (1997)
¾ Cost and Effect, Harvard Business School Press
140
Luenberger, David G. (1973)
¾ Introduction to Linear and Nonlinear Programming, Addison Wesley.
Preinreich, Gabriel A.D. (1938)
¾ Annual Survey of Economic Theory: The Theory of Depreciation, in:
Econometrica 6 (3) pp. 219‐241.
Roberts, John (2007)
¾ The Modern Firm. Organizational Design for Performance and Growth. Oxford
Univ. Press.
Shephard, Ronald W. (1953)
¾ Cost and Production Functions, Princeton University Press.
141