Classification Shifting of R&D Expense Hollis A. Skaife University of Wisconsin-Madison hskaife@bus.wisc.edu Laura A. Swenson Georgia State University lswenson@gsu.edu Daniel D. Wangerin Michigan State University wangerin@bus.msu.edu October 2013 We appreciate comments from Nerissa Brown, Sarah McVay, David Veenman, participants at the 2012 FARS Mid-Year Meeting and workshop participants at HKUST, University of California – Davis, University of Illinois – Chicago, University of Maryland, and University of Toronto. We give special thanks to Matt DeAngelis for giving us access to his data base of conference call text and thank Dan Lynch for his research assistance.