Knowledge that Transforms

In his article, Exchange Rate Adjustment and Relative Size of the Depreciating Bloc, Professor Orcutt set out to attack the notion that by a large bloc versus the rest of the world generally would be substantially less effective than depreciation by a small country versus the rest of the world. Indeed, he goes so far as to conclude that for the case of actual large blocs, such as the dollar bloc or the sterling bloc, application of the model developed in this paper would seem to indicate that effectiveness of depreciation would be substantially greater than in the case of the small country versus the rest of the world. This conclusion merits evaluation.

THE basic question to which this paper is addressed is "What is the importance of distance in determining the pattern of Western European trade?"The importance of distance in the pattern of trade has, of course, always been recognized.The assumption of "no transport costs," which has always been necessary in expositions of theories of international trade, is a recognition of the fact that transport costs, that is, the costs of covering distance, exist and are significant; so that abstraction from them has to be made quite explicitly in order to analyze other elements such as factor endowments.' 0 0 t 0 0 0 "inCq 0 e oo HO ~, "d0 80 8 00 0 * .. 99"o 'A-.

Abstract To many accountants depreciation as we know it today represents an idea which is a generally accepted accounting principle. Business has not always had such respect for depreciation accounting. This article has as its goal a highlight review of some of the interesting changes, which have occurred in the development of this accounting concept. The idea of depreciation was not clearly established by the latter part of the nineteenth century. In 1876, the United States Supreme Court stated, in referring to the determination of the profit of a merchant, that it was unusual to take into account depreciation on a building in which a merchant maintained his business. In 1878, the United States Supreme Court criticized the practice of establishing depreciation reserves through periodic charges to operating expense, and held that only the actual expenses of renewals could be charged to operating expense. The idea as expressed by the Supreme Court was apparently the common thinking of business leaders, for the Third National Convention of Railroad Commissioners in 1879 adopted a report on uniform accounts which included the following instruction no expenditure is chargeable for an actual increase though unless it is made on old work in such a way as to clearly increase the value of the property over and above the cost of renewing the original structures. Corollary to this idea was the thought that if property were properly maintained there would be no depreciation.

2 3 Buck, A. E., "Municipal Finance," 11 Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 99 at 9

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Peer Reviewed