Journal Article The Incidence of Sales Taxes: Rejoinder Get access Donald W. Gilbert Donald W. Gilbert University of Rochester Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 54, Issue 4_Part_1, August 1940, Pages 686–693, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/54.4_Part_1.686 Published: 01 August 1940

Journal Article Rejoinder Get access John D. Black John D. Black Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 54, Issue 2, February 1940, Pages 316–317, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883339 Published: 01 February 1940

Reviews the book "The Analysis and Control of Distribution Costs," by J. Brooks Heckert.

Reviews the book "Security Analysis," by Benjamin Graham and David L. Dodd.

Reviews the book "The Taxation of Small Incomes: Social, Revenue and Administrative Aspects," by Paul J. Strayer.

The article presents information on recent developments related to accounting in various universities of the United States. S. Paul Garner, associate professor of accounting, has collaborated with professor G.H. Newlove of the University of Texas in the writing of a text entitled Elementary Cost Accounting, which is expecting to get published in January 1941. Chester K. Knight, professor of accounting, and currently secretary of the Alabama Society of C.P.A.'s, will address the Birmingham, Albama chapter of the National Association of Chartered Accountants next February. Professor E.J. Kirkham of the University of Illinois, and professor Ray Sadler of the University of Indiana, has received appointments as instructors in accounting. J.M. Charitori, instructor, has resigned to become an officer of the United States Army. The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California sponsored its second annual accounting institute on November 7, 1940. The general theme was Clarity, Brevity, and Realism in Reporting. Speakers, including participants as leaders of round tables, numbered well over thirty, and represented many lines of industry operating in the Los Angeles area.

WHEN TO REPLACE individual units of durable equipment by similar or improved units is one of the main problems, upon which the success of industrial enterprise depends. Nevertheless, no unified presentation of its many aspects appears to have been published up to the present. The principal writers refer to replacement merely incidentally, when discussing the subject of depreciation. From the theoretical point of view, such an approach really amounts to putting the cart before the horse.' Replacement is the basic problem, because it actually affects the composition and productivity of a plant. Calculations of depreciation are mere figures entered into books, the significance of which depends entirely on the use to which they are put. The concept of depreciation does not enter into the theory of capital value at all. In practice, on the other hand, differences in depreciation methods do to some extent influence the judgment of traders in the negotiable symbols of composite capital goods. This anomaly is due partly to defective accounting methods. A study of the replacement problem by itself must precede attempts to correct the situation. The value aspect of replacement or arises from the familiar phenomenon that many types of machines outlive their usefulness. The income stream derived from their operation gradually declines, until a more attractive alternative becomes available. The theory that the economic life of a machine is a period which makes the unit cost (plus interest) of the product a minimum, appears to have been originated by Professor J. S. Taylor.2 His algebraic presentation was simplified and refined by Professor Harold Hotelling,3 who employs continuous functions for the purpose. The basic formula given by the latter writer is:4