Rollover risk and managerial cost adjustment decisions

Abstract Rollover risk is the risk that a firm may not be able to refinance its debt when it becomes due. We investigate whether managers’ resource adjustment decisions are influenced by rollover risk and find that cost stickiness is decreasing in rollover risk. Additionally, the negative relationship between rollover risk and cost stickiness is stronger for firms with higher financial constraints and fewer financing sources. These results suggest that, when faced with elevated rollover risk, managers are willing to forego the benefits from a sticky cost behaviour. Finally, the use of an alternative firm‐specific measure of cost stickiness corroborates our main finding.