Do sticky costs influence business profit? An approach based on Spanish agricultural companies

摘要

The objective of this work is to analyze the determinants of the profitability of Spanish agricultural companies. Specifically, we want to analyze whether sticky costs influence profit or profitability for a group of 3,852 Spanish agricultural companies for the period between 2006 and 2018. The methodology consists of the calculation of sticky costs following the proposal of Weis (2010) and ordinary least squares regression to panel data. The results show an influence of sticky costs on profitability, which indicates that the management carried out by managers in terms of cost management has a relevant influence on determining business success. In addition, it is also observed how the level of indebtedness, the working capital, as well as the size of the company show a negative effect, while the Cash Flow exerts a positive effect.