Reviews the book "The Capital Budgeting Decision," by Harold Bierman, Jr. and Seymour Smidt.

Reviews the book "Criteria For Disclosure of Post-Statement Events," by William Baker Flowers.

Reviews the book "American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Accounting Trends and Techniques," 14th ed.

This article focuses on mathematics in the accounting curriculum. In recent years, the curriculum followed by the accounting student has been the subject of much study and discussion. Most of these studies have reached the conclusion that present requirements in mathematics are inadequate. There is little doubt that these requirements need strengthening, but there is a question of how this should be accomplished. Some schools have attempted to meet this problem by increasing tile number of semester hours of mathematics required for a degree, a few requiring one semester of calculus. This seems to be an unsatisfactory solution to the problem. Courses in mathematics have traditionally been designed to meet the needs of those who are following a curriculum in science or engineering. The redesigning of the mathematics curriculum to meet the needs of business students will require the highest level of cooperation between the business and mathematics faculties. The business teachers must help in outlining the courses and the mathematician must be willing to teach this material with examples from business and economics.

It is generally agreed that the purpose of any financial statement is to present useful information for decision-making by its readers. The growing popularity of the sources and applications of funds statement (hereafter referred to as the funds statement) indicates that this report presents information which is not readily found in the typical income statement or balance sheet. In meeting this need, accountants should determine what information is desired by readers of funds statements and then should design an appropriate report. A contemporary accounting scholar, Louis Goldberg. strongly dissented from this acceptance in 1951, stating that the shift in emphasis has been in the wrong direction and that the earlier concepts were more cogent, more satisfying and more rational. A shift out of cash into inventories, voluntary, or vice versa, might he one of the most significant financial changes during a period. Similarly a large decline in notes payable and increase in open accounts, or vice versa, may foretell an important change in financial or credit policy. These and analogous types of changes within working capital are not revealed in the orthodox statement.

Accounting is a means of making certain quantitative information available. When it is obligatory, as in tax reporting, there are rules to follow and no theory need justify them. (Some rules are formulated only after specific returns have been filed.) The area where theory and professional training are relevant is that where a decision-maker is (or would be) motivated to incur the collection costs of accounting because he expects to make a decision which will be more rewarding because the data were known than would the saving of the collection costs have been. The many parties (all of whom are managers) who need this kind of data are mainly trying to determine what company management seeks to know--company prospects under various (or a single) future conditions. Historical data are often irrelevant, and logical historical income determination often disguises relevant portions of the data. Accounting theory should pay more attention to users' objectives, even at the sacrifice of some objectivity. All accounting courses should stress usefulness by pointing out shortcomings of certain data as well as by pointing out the precise conditions where useful data are relevant. At present there is need for a course with this practical emphasis in which the principal attention will be on the relations of data to decisions and on means of analyzing and augmenting routine data for limited internal purposes.

Reviews the book "Advanced Accounting," by Arnold W.Johnson.

Reviews the book "Investments," 7th ed., by David F.Jordan and Herbert E.Dougall.

The article presents a critical appreciation by the author in response to a Abraham J. Briloff's criticism of his article "A technique to Adjust Financial Statement Data for Changing Price Levels," published in the October 1961 issue of the Journal "The Accounting Review." The author retorts that Briloff has, for the second time, attacked the idea of indicating the effect of inflation on business income, the earlier account was in July 1958 issue of the journal. The author states that as far as net income is concerned, Briloff embraces the unusual concept that all increase, realized or unrealized, in the monetary value of a firm's net assets over a period of time is income, and as such is taxable. To him, it matters not whether the increase in dollar value is the result of realization or conversion, or partly the result of a monetary unit that has declined in value. At the present time, U. S. businesses are taxed on realized gains which partly reflect inflated dollars. The author comments that to this current inequity, Briloff would add a tax on unrealized gains as well. The author informs that in this article, he will consider only the weaknesses of Briloff's recommendations and his adamant position against price level adjustments to financial statements.