Journal Article The Community Indifference Map: A Construction Get access William J. Baumol William J. Baumol Princeton University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 17, Issue 3, 1949, Pages 189–197, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296278 Published: 01 January 1949

Abstract The article presents views of the author on accounting participation. To date this work has progressed almost entirely without participation from accountants. This lack of participation has, I think, been unfortunate. Accounting participation might have served to accelerate certain developments. It should not have taken so long to realize, as scholar Andrew Hagen notes that national-income measurement is best thought of as double-entry bookkeeping, a perception that at once made clear that the exact relationship between income and output. Moreover, the process of analysis has not been carried through to its ultimate conclusion. It is particularly deficient on the balance-sheet and especially the equity, side. In hands of economists it was only natural that emphasis should rest on income measurement. Only recently and imperfectly, has attention begun to be devoted to the balance sheet. To date, however, resolution to the equity accounts hits not been successfully carried out. It is difficult to believe that this balance sheet backwardness would have occurred if accountants had participated more systematically in these developments.

petition in the narrow sense of the term would appear to be unimportant from a public policy point of view. The real monopoly problems are associated with the large and such a is typically in competition with a few rivals. (2) A large buyer (or seller) can under certain circumstances enforce something like pure competition on his small suppliers (or customers). In the distributive trades highly routinized, inefficient and inflexible performance of function has been changed to the very considerable advantage of consumers by the penetration of large mass distributors. The existence of a large number of small competitors does not necessarily spell efficiency nor does the emergence of the large necessarily imply consumer exploitation. (3) Static analysis, using the few variables customarily considered in the economics of the firm and operating under assumptions of profit maximization, takes us a very little way toward that understanding of the behavior of large firms necessary to effective public policy in this area.

Abstract In order to have good financial and accounting administration in a Government department or bureau, or in a business enterprise, we need to concern ourselves with certain fundamentals like a good general conception of the role of financial and accounting administration in the entire management of the unit. There must be a will on the part of the entire management to use accounting tools purposes. There must be a good organizational plan, both for the entire unit and for the accounting department. There has been a failure in public administration circles to recognize the role of accounting in public administration. The whole field of accounting is one of the last management areas to be developed. Accountants bear a fair share of the blame for this lag. It is believed that public administration is quite a way behind business in the development of the conception of the role of accounting in management control. It seems that there may be two reasons for such a lag in the Government sector: (1) There has been no overwhelming, compulsive urge in Government, such as exists in competitive business, for economical administration with intention to control of costs; and (2) the patterns of public administration in the Federal Government are fixed very strongly by tradition and the straight-jacket of statute.

Abstract The preparation of young people for careers in business has become one of the major tasks of universities and colleges in the United States during the past two or three decades, judging from the standpoint of enrolment in business colleges and schools. Yet the preoccupation of business educators with the problems of curriculum has not kept pace with the growth in enrolment nor with the expanding responsibility of collegiate schools for the preparation of potential leaders in the study and management of economic affairs in our complex society. As an institution, the university is conservative of the vital traditions of the culture as well as provocative in the critical analysis of these traditions. But in the new field of business education, too little attention has been paid to defining its place in university education; and too much reliance has been placed, on the one hand, on the liberal arts traditions, while overemphasizing, on the other, the strictly vocational preparation of students.

Abstract The significance of facts is mere important than the facts themselves, and if accountants know the significance, people may even forget the facts. This thought, expressed by Oliver Wendell Holmes, seems pertinent when appraising the relation of accounting to management. It is the managerial significance of business data that is really important. Ideally, the greatest aid that accounting could offer management would be to assist in the accomplishment of its objectives through the preparation and interpretation of appropriate statements. The techniques whereby business transactions are recorded and their values eventually placed in the statements are of secondary importance. The relation between accounting and management has been commonly expressed by the phrase that accounting is a tool of management. This means that it is possible for management, through the use of proper accounting reports, to make decisions and to formulate policies based on recorded business data. The function of interpreting accounting records has been accepted by accountants.