Knowledge that Transforms

I. Assumptions, 36. — Five propositions concerning the relationship between short and long rates, 37. — II. Influence of the costs of investment, 41. — Shiftability on the lenders' side, 43. — Two complications: many maturities, 44; the function of banks as changers of maturities, 45. — III. The influence of risk, 46. — IV. Expectations: the rational investor's decisions, 48; possible inconsistencies, 49. Effect of divergent expectations among members of the market, when the majority expect rising interest rates, 51; when "the market" expects rates to fall, 54. — V. Verification: movement of interest rates over time, 55; structure of yields on different maturities, 56. — VI. Bearing of this analysis on: influence of the discount rate on investment, 60; interest and the marginal efficiency of capital, 60; influence of wide gaps between short and long rates, 61; the "liquidity theory of interest, " 62.

Chapter I: German Exchange Control, 1931–1939: From an Emergency Measure to a Totalitarian Institution Get access The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 54, Issue 4_Part_2, August 1940, Pages 1–158, https://doi.org/10.2307/1882619 Published: 01 August 1940

Nature of the data, 384. — Scope of the study, 385. — Method of computation, 386. — The small business man not included, 387. — General movement of profits, 387. — Influence of the two Four-Year Plans, 388. — Comparison of industries, 389. — The problem of new financing, 395. — Provisional figures for 1937 and 1938, 396. — Objections: profits may not mean what they say, 397; disposal over profits is not free, 397. — Adjustment for taxes, 398.

Criticized and condemned but never thoroughly analyzed, the cash basis of accounting remains a relatively unexplored field of accounting theory. At the hands of the text writers, it has received meager treatment indeed. The perfunctory treatment may be adequate because the cash basis is a simple concept whose application is readily apparent. The writer hopes that this article will dispel that illusion. Indeed, an adequate treatment of all problems lurking in a comprehensive analysis of the cash method is too ambitious a project. The article is therefore confined to one small segment of the problem: the treatment of prepaid expenses. Suggestions changing the practice in respect of the cash method have not been lacking. For the most part, these have been confined to limiting its scope. Indeed, it has been forcefully suggested that it be entirely abolished in Federal income taxation. There is this to be said in favor of the abolition or serious curtailment of the cash method. It allows the taxpayer a greater degree of control over the amount of disbursements and thereby over the amount of taxable net income in any particular year.

Reviews the book "The Federal Income Tax," by Roy G. Blakey and Gladys C. Blakey.

The article focuses on some unsettled problems of income. Much has been written about income for tax purposes. Some writers have been concerned with concepts and definitions; some have been devoted to the more detailed problems of measurement. A study of the concepts and definitions shows a great variety of opinions among writers from such important countries as the U.S., England, France, Germany and Italy. Concepts of taxable income, which have been presented often come from writers in political economy who have in view some special social or national fiscal policy. The concept sometimes has an ethical flavor other than the capacity of the individual to pay. Types of definition vary greatly in fundamental content. At one extreme is the idea that income is determined by the disposition made of the form in which it is embodied while at the other extreme is the idea that there is income only after there has been ample deduction for both consumption and capital maintenance. Concepts applied vary with expediency social and political ends, or other consideration not based on individual capacity. There is often unfair discrimination as between individuals whose composite respective income situations might in fact be similar.

Reviews the book "Accounting for the Individual and Family," by Neva Henrietta Radell.

According to the author of this article, it is not his purpose to deal at length with the materials or subject matter with which accounting research might concern it. While some mention will be made of these materials, he is more concerned to develop certain points of view, which he thinks should animate the research worker in accounting. A common assertion by research workers is that a given generally accepted principle ought to be re-examined, or that indeed all of them ought to be re-examined. This is a proposition, which in itself can receive general consent. But it often happens that the statement "that generally accepted principles of accounting should be re-examined" is frequently made by those who already have rather definite ideas for converting those generally accepted principles into something entirely different from what they are, or were ever intended to be. Those accountants who pretend to anything at all along the lines of accounting research cannot ignore the idea which bobs up from time to time, that accountants should try to devise a presentation of their data in entirely new forms.

Reviews the book "Business and the Public Library: Steps in Successful Cooperation," edited by Marian C. Manley.

Reviews the book "Beginning Accounting," by Dana F. Cole.