Testing for Expense Preference Behavior: Mutual versus Stock Savings and Loans
检验储蓄与贷款行业的费用偏好行为，发现传统截距检验的假设不成立，并提出更一般化的检验方法，结果不支持管理者存在费用偏好的结论。
This article investigates expense preference behavior in the savings and loan industry. Previous studies used an intercept test and, in general, concluded that managers of mutual S&Ls exhibit expense preference behavior. I derive the necessary and sufficient conditions on cost functions for the intercept test to be valid. These restrictions are rejected for the savings and loan industry. Stock and mutual S&Ls have different cost structures, and both have non-Cobb-Douglas production technologies. I derive a new, more general test for expense preference behavior that does not require the restrictive assumptions of the intercept test. The results of this test do not support earlier conclusions of managerial expense preferences.