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In this paper, 'content analysis' is used to investigate corporate submissions on proposed accounting standards on two levels. First, the written submissions of companies on 28 of the first 31 UK Exposure Drafts (EDs) are examined in detail for any economic or political references. A moderate level of evidence is found to support the hypothesis that some potential economic and political consequences of ED proposals are a major interest of corporate management. The second 'content analysis' endeavours to identify the relative significance to corporate management of 27 EDs by simply comparing the absolute and relative numbers both of respondents and also of lines in their 'comments'. This approach could be used to derive 'weights' for analytical models that consider the economic and political consequences of groups of ED 'comments' together. It is found that there are statistically significant high positive correlations between the results of the two content analyses. That is, EDs that in their 'comments' received the most (least) frequent references to economic and political consequences, also tended to be the most (least) significant in terms of volume of submissions. This indicates that the EDs included in the study were remarkably consistent in their overall economic and political impact on corporate commentators.

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This paper examines the degree to which auditor and client lobbying is related in a UK context. This may help to identify any linkage between the wealth of clients and auditors that is affected by accounting standards, as propounded in the 'economic consequences' literature. It also might have some implications for the independence question. Three tests are conducted to see if auditors tend to support the lobbying position of the majority, or the most financially influential, of their clients. The third test is also used to identify any evidence that the comments of smaller clients tend to follow the lead of their audit firms/professional advisors. Auditor and corporate client written submissions on 22 proposed accounting standards are included in the study. The analyses are conducted both at an aggregated and also at a disaggregated level. The results do not indicate that auditor and client collusion took place. In particular, the results are consistent with the view that auditors are independent of their clients. Some suggestions are made for further research.

Purpose -Strategic cost structure choices determine how firms divide operating costs between fixed and variable components, and therefore have important implications for financial performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of operating leverage on equity Betas when managers have discretion over firms' cost structures. Design/methodology/approach -Using panel data for publicly listed trucking firms over years 1994-2006, market model Betas are regressed on controls and alternatively measured proxies for operating leverage: degree of operating leverage, assets in place and percentage of company employed drivers. Findings -Results of this study generally show positively significant coefficients on all three operating leverage variables. Originality/value -Operating characteristics of many industries require that firms make substantial investments in long-lived assets that result in high fixed costs (e.g. depreciation), and for these firms cost structure is exogenously or technologically constrained leaving managers with little discretion. In contrast to these types of firms, the authors examine the effect of operating leverage (OL) on Betas when managers have discretion over firms' cost structures. Trucking firms are a particularly interesting industry group for analyzing the impact of operating OL choices on Beta because distinct strategic cost structure choices are available to the management of trucking firms that result in various degrees of OL throughout the industry.