ABSTRACT: Congress has re-enacted the accelerated amortization deduction for certified pollution control facilities, presumably to stimulate investments in such facilities. Through the use of a present-value federal income tax impact model, it is shown that rarely will the provision serve as a tax "incentive" for this type of investment when elected by a manufacturing firm.
The learning objectives and the major features of a computer extended instructional system called CAL are described in this paper. The system consists of an interactive program, instructions, and several exercises. The overall objective of CAL is to improve the transfer of learning from the classroom to the practice of accounting without significantly increasing the homework burden of students. The subject matter to be learned is the reciprocal allocation model used in managerial and financial accounting to determine the costs or earnings of reciprocally related entities. CAL contributes to increased learning transfer by making it possible to put more emphasis on problem formulation and solution interpretation and less on solution computation. With CAL one can formulate and solve a variety of problems in a short time. Experience indicates that testing, course planning and faculty-student interactions will change if an interactive system such as CAL is implemented in accounting courses.
Behavior is primarily explained in terms of mental processes which are unobservable, and secondarily in terms of observable environmental factors. This approach seems to be generic to accounting research which utilizes an "expectancy theory" framework. Expectancy theory holds that behavior results from a decision-making process in which it is assumed that Individuals place different values (ordinal or cardinal) on different outcomes. Behavior results from decisions made by the individual after considering the relationship between the various decisions and the values of those decisions. In contrast, conditioning theory does not postulate metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of the individual. Conditioning theory holds that all behavior may be pragmatically explained in terms of the history of interactions between an organism and its environment. Conditioning theory maintains that purposive connotations, such as needs or drives, add nothing to the scientific analysis of behavior.