管理会计(英文版)课后习题答案(高等教育出版社)chapter 3

管理会计（高等教育出版社）

于增彪（清华大学）改编

余绪缨（厦门大学）审校

CHAPTER 3

ACTIVITY COST BEHAVIOR

QUESTIONS FOR WRITING AND DISCUSSION

1.Knowledge of cost behavior allows a man-

ager to assess changes in costs that result from changes in activity. This allows a man-ager to assess the effects of choices that change activity. For example, if excess ca-pacity exists, bids that at least cover variable costs may be totally appropriate. Knowing what costs are variable and what costs are fixed can help a manager make better bids.

2.The longer the time period, the more likely

that a cost will be variable. The short run is a period of time for which at least one cost is fixed. In the long run, all costs are variable.

3.Resource spending is the cost of acquiring

the capacity to perform an activity, whereas resource usage is the amount of activity ac-tually used. It is possible to use less of the activity than what is supplied. Only the cost of the activity actually used should be as-signed to products.

4.Flexible resources are those acquired from

outside sources and do not involve any long-term commitment for any given amount of resource. Thus, the cost of these resources increases as the demand for them increas-es, and they are variable costs (varying in proportion to the associated activity driver).

mitted resources are acquired by the

use of either explicit or implicit contracts to

obtain a given quantity of resources, regard-less of whether the quantity of resource available is fully used or not. For multiperiod commitments, the cost of these resources essentially corresponds to committed fixed costs. Other resources acquired in advance are short term in nature and essentially cor-respond to discretionary fixed costs.

mitted fixed costs are those incurred for

the acquisition of long-term activity capacity and are not subject to change in the short run. Annual resource expenditure is inde-pendent of actual usage. For example, the cost of a factory building is a committed fixed cost. Discretionary fixed costs are those incurred for the acquisition of short-term activity capacity, the levels of which can be altered quickly. In the short run, resource expenditure is also independent of actual ac-tivity usage. An engineer’s salary is an e x-ample of such an expenditure.

7. A variable cost increases in direct proportion

to changes in activity usage. A one-unit in-crease in activity usage produces an in-crease in cost. A step cost, however, in-creases only as activity usage changes in small blocks or chunks. An increase in cost requires an increase in several units of activ-ity. When a step cost changes over relatively