Knowledge that Transforms

This article presents information regarding the recent studies by members of the American Accounting Association's Committee on National Income. Members of the Committee have been engaged on independent projects of their own choosing and their findings have for the most part been reviewed by the Committee at its several meetings. This does not mean, however, that the ideas of each Committee member have been conformed to a common pattern. It has been the judgment of Committee members that the Committee's activities should continue for some time to come to assume the form of individual explorations within the field, and that the particular topics chosen for investigation and report should at this stage reflect both the individual's background and his immediate field of interest. Each member of the Committee expresses the hope that his paper will be regarded as work in progress and that his analysis and suggestions may aid future Committees in charting their programs.

Reviews the book "Taxation and the American Economy, and Economic, Legal, and Administrative Analysis," by William H. Anderson.

Reviews the book "Auditing," 3rd ed., by William H. Bell and Ralph S. Johns.

Reviews the book "The Finances of a Church," by Robert Cashman.

Reviews the book "Introduction to Linear Programming ," by A. Charnes, W.W. Cooper and A. Henderson.

In this paper a distinction is drawn between national income statistics and social accounting, despite the close relation that exists between the two fields. The former field is viewed as being concerned with compilation and publication of isolated aggregate figures such as national income or gross national product which purport to provide over-all pictures of a nation's total economic activity. The latter field is concerned with details of structure and intra-sector flows in the context of a double-entry system of accounts. As a proper part of the system of social accounts various national income statistics may be synthesized. The purpose of a national system of accounts is to provide information concerning the economic activity of a country in concise and comprehensive fashion. This requires a systematic method of classifying economic transactions. This may be done in a variety of ways. One classification may be by type of economic activity, another classification may be by type of economic function and the formation of capital.

Reviews the book "The Retail Inventory Method and LIFO," by Malcolm P. McNair and Anita C. Hersum.

Reviews the book "Principles of Auditing," by Walter B. Meigs.

Reviews the book "Management Controls in Industrial Research Organizations," by Robert N. Anthony.

Students with no previous knowledge of accounting often have considerable difficulty in appreciating the rationale of the debit/credit technique and its implications in relation to basic double entry theory. In performing the task of accounting for assets, one account for just these two concepts, namely, (i) assets themselves, and (ii) the rights to ownership of the assets. The term "equities" has been used up to the present as the one most appropriate to convey the notion of this ownership of or rights to assets. Thus, one can get as the interpretation of this twofold aspect of this positive notion of assets, the first expression of the basic accounting equation, that is, assets are always equal to equities. The right of ownership of assets constitutes a source of claim upon them, and these claims can be distinguished as resting in two main categories, designated "liabilities" and "proprietorship." That is, equities is equal to liabilities plus proprietorship, and hence, assets is equal to liabilities plus proprietorship.