Reviews the book "Handbook of Modern Accounting," by Sidney Davidson and Roman Weil.

Microcomputer spreadsheet programs can ease both preparation and grading of accounting examination questions whose solutions involve lengthy, sequential calculations.

Reviews the book "Accounting Information Systems: A Cycle Approach," by Leonard A. Robinson, James R. Davis, and C. Wayne Alderman.

Reviews the book "Corporate Reporting: Its Future Evolution," by Edward Stamp.

Previous analytical work has shown that a firm's cash recovery rate (the ratio of cash recovery during a period to gross investments outstanding during the period) is related to the internal rate of return of firm projects in the event that the firm reinvests all of its cash flows. This paper extends the previous analytical work by establishing a link between a firm's cash recovery rate and the internal rate of return of firm projects in circumstances when the firm does not reinvest all of its cash flows. Additionally, this paper applies the extended model to a group of firms in order to obtain estimates of their internal rates of return. Work of this kind would seem to be of particular interest to economic researchers who are interested in theoretically defensible empirical measures of firm profitability.

The currently prescribed method of dealing with potentially dilutive securities in earnings per share calculations is reconsidered in light of the more recent development of equilibrium pricing models for options and convertible securities. This new treatment of an old problem offers a theoretical structure founded upon recent developments in finance. It is shown that fairly precise statements about the timing of voluntary conversion or exercise of potentially dilutive securities are often possible. Moreover, assessments of the probabilities of future stock prices reaching levels which would allow conversion or exercise can be derived from a widely used stochastic model of security price behavior. Some implications for policy are discussed.

SFAS No. 2, issued in October, 1974, required most firms to expense the costs of their R&D activities as incurred. Upon careful consideration of the accounting change imposed on firms previously following the deferral alternative, it is argued that a market reaction to the accounting change could be attributed to the effects of new information or to the effects of expected changes in management decisions. The tests in this study are designed to detect effects of the latter type. No significant market reaction to the imposition of SFAS No. 2 was observed. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that investors did not expect managements' decisions to change as a result of the new accounting method for R&D costs.

This note reports on one method currently available to insurance companies and those with insurance subsidiaries for "managing earnings," illustrates it for Sears Roebuck and Co., and concludes that Sears' management has not taken advantage of all of the income-smoothing possibilities provided by the generally accepted accounting principles for insurance companies.

Reviews the book "The CPA Examination: Text, Problems and Solutions," by A.N. Mosich and E. John Larsen.

A knowledge-recognition social exchange model is proposed in this article to conceptualize academic research as a sequential interdependent process. The importance of peer evaluation and feedback to the researcher is emphasized. University goals and their inter-relationships with resource allocation decisions are discussed. The paper reports the results of a survey to ascertain organizational consensus regarding the relative importance of research output indicators in the evaluation of the effectiveness of academic engineering departments' research programs. There is a general consensus among faculty members and between faculty and administrators to attribute the highest importance to papers published in scholarly journals. The regard for the importance of research proposals, however, is not widely shared. The study recommends published papers, invited papers and dissertations as output indicators to be measured by a university's system.