Reviews the book "Applied Time and Motion Study," by Walter G. Holmes.

This article focuses on the basic content and needs of the auditing course. It describes that auditing is considered as the application of accounting principles to the various transactions which come before the public accountant in his daily work. It is advised that instruction in auditing should essentially include not only the application of the principles to a certain transaction but the application of the principles to the same type of transaction under varying conditions and circumstances. As an advanced subject auditing is restricted to those students who have satisfactorily completed courses in other accounting subjects such as bookkeeping, theory of accounting and accounting problems. It should not include detailed discussions of principles of accounting, or give any basic instruction in such principles. The course in auditing as distinguished from other courses in accounting and many other subjects should emphasize continually the habit of clear thinking.

The report of the Committee on Auditing Procedure of the American Institute of Accountants has been revised. The changes have to do with the alteration of the proposed procedures relating to receivables and inventories, whereby physical tests and verification by correspondence have been cut down to practically the same level as called for by previous practice. It might not be unexpected, following the McKesson and Robbins disclosures, that accountants, seeking protection, should amplify their responsibilities in an unnatural degree and reach a somewhat hysterical conclusion from which time alone would have made them recede. The professional criticism was that participating in inventory counts might give the accountant the appearance of appraiser; that tests, fully as acceptable as circularization, are available for determining the existence and propriety of receivables. Except for inserting the reference to a detailed audit, the changes were textual and the same remarks can be applied to the new certificate. The certificate is defective in that it is designed to protect the accountant rather than to give information to those who rely on the information which financial statements are supposed to reveal.

This article considering the accounting and marketing techniques which flow from state and federal laws affecting price and pricing policies in the U.S. It is needless to stress the fact that government intervention in business has increased greatly in recent years. This trend is likely to continue to increase, but the rate of that increase can and will be modified by the extent to which business itself puts its own house in order. It is necessary at this point to lay the foundation for an important distinction which needs to be drawn between true open-price reporting and the variety of price reporting which prevailed in many instances during the National Recovery Administration. Since many trade associations arise out of the state of business depression within an industry, it is not unnatural to find that their spirit and purpose is strongly defensive. To those who enter upon an Open-Price Association under the conviction that they have joined hands to fight a common enemy, the legal requirement that all price data be made available to buyers and sellers alike comes as a rude shock. It is tantamount to an order to disclose everything to the enemy, and is hardly consistent with usual defense tactics.

Reviews the book "Operating Results of Consumer Cooperatives in the United States in 1937," by Carl N.Schmalz.

The price legislation referred to in this article includes the Robinson-Patman Act, the various state resale-price-maintenance laws together with the Miller-Tydlings amendment, and the minimum-price laws, which have recently enacted by the U.S. government. Some of the features which these laws have in common have been suggested. These laws impinge upon prices in apparently different ways, the first deals with relative prices paid by retailers, the second with prices relative and absolute charged by retailers for identical branded goods, and the third group with prices charged by retailers on any and all goods relative to the costs of those goods. To discover the real significance of these laws, one must be concerned with the identity of sponsors, their motives, and the state of mind of the public and the legislators who approved them than with the defenses that can be offered for them. The broader significance of recent price laws is that they are antichain-store and antiprice-cutting laws. As such, they are designed to protect the general run of independent merchants from the competition of those who threaten the existing order.

The first question an accounting student should put to himself or herself, is, why he is thinking of preparing for and of engaging in the practice of public accountancy? Not many years ago some may have decided upon public accountancy because of the idea that its rewards in money were above the average, in some cases quite exceptional. But a professional life is not the most promising occupation to one imbued with the ambition of acquiring great wealth. There are notable exceptions in law and medicine, and some other professions. In accountancy fewer than 25,000 certificates have been issued. Probably there are less than 20,000 certified public accountants (CPAs) in practice and perhaps two or three times as many who are not certified. The number of those who have accumulated what could be considered as even approximating wealth is very few. Others may have thought of accounting as offering opportunities for reaching positions of distinction in the community. In politics, at least one CPA has gone to U.S. Congress and several have reached the legislatures. Perhaps there have been instances of accountants being elected or appointed to other important governmental positions. But for the positions for which accountants would seem to be especially fitted, the treasureships, the auditorships and the heads of departments of taxation, banking, insurance and the like, the selections of accountants have been very infrequent.

Journal Article Pareto Versus Marshall Get access E. B. Wilson E. B. Wilson Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 53, Issue 4, August 1939, Pages 645–650, https://doi.org/10.2307/1883289 Published: 01 August 1939