The article focuses on innovations in an elementary accounting program. The rapid growth of student enrollment at Northern Illinois University has initiated a challenge to the Department of Accounting to provide effective and yet progressive instruction in elementary accounting for a prospective 1,250 students per year. The article summarizes 6 major innovations of the program. Assisting the Director in planning and organization of the Elementary Accounting Program and in the teaching and evaluation of student performance is a staff of 20 carefully selected graduate assistants who are pursuing the MBA or MS in Accountancy. In conjunction with their teaching assistantship, the graduate assistants enroll in Accountancy 539, a three-hour graduate seminar entitled, Improving Instruction in College Business Courses. The seminar commences with a four 4-day, preschool workshop. The workshop includes instruction in the mechanics of the program, objectives of accounting education, the learning process, various teaching methods and aids, techniques of teaching, handling student differences, and demonstrations on the various teaching approaches.

Reviews two books on taxation. "Analysis of the Tax Reform Act of 1969," edited by Gilbert Simonetti, Jr. and Harry Z. Garian; "Working With the Revenue Code--1971," by Don J. Summa.

Reviews the book "Organizing, Operating, and Terminating Subchapter S Corporations," by D. Larry Crumbley and P. Michael Davis.

The article focuses on business combinations. Economist Baruch Lev commented on risk reduction as a motive for conglomerate mergers and the use of a game theoretic approach-proposed by economist Jan Mossin in the determination of exchange ratios for business combinations. In essence, Lev argued that conglomerate mergers may have no economic justification, the argument stems from the possibility that investors may be able to attain the risk and rate-of-return objectives of a proposed merger via the process of making adjustments in their personal portfolios. As a corollary, it was suggested that economically unjustifiable mergers may impose unnecessary transactions costs on the stockholders of the merging firms. Although these arguments have appeal, it should be noted that they appear to ignore some evidence on the efficiency of the capital markets. The efficient markets hypothesis states that market prices fully reflect available information which is implied by the statement that prices adjust instantaneously and unbiasedly to new information.

Reviews the book "Topics in Managerial Accounting," by L.S. Rosen.