P HE controversy over stability or lack of stability of relative shares continues unresolved. Good men and true among our colleagues, such as G. J. Schuller (io), D. G. Johnson (5), E. H. Phelps-Brown and M. H. Browne (8), R. M. Solow (i i), and I. B. Kravis (6), take a hard look at pretty much same data, allocate a few accounts differently, and come up with widely diverging answers. Johnson and Phelps-Brown and Browne see stability, rigidity, fixity. Solow and Kravis, however, take issue with those who, in Solow's spritely phrase hold view that, the share of national income accruing to labor one of great constants of nature, like velocity of light or incest taboo. (ii) New interest and significance has been injected into this controversy of late by S. Weintraub (I4), (I6) who forcefully restates contention that labor's share analogous to a natural constant like law of gravity or Senator Goldwater's views on taxation. On this fixity he erects a wage cost mark-up equation to replace venerable equation of exchange and a law of price level with strong wage push inflation implications. Weintraub shifts discussion from labor's share of National Income to labor's share of Business Gross Product, or rather its reciprocal which he dubs k, and concludes that the practical constancy of k an empirical fact, [(I4), 39] and further holds that k's constancy is probably most important law, in true sense, that economists have to work with. [(I4), 33] A. P. Lerner's review article (7) concedes this constancy, but deplores Weintraub's excitement over this near fixity and his building a Law of Price Level on it. I cannot decide for others such a question as how big a fluctuation a small fluctuation, but if Solow, Kravis and others, like Lerner, will accept k as practically constant, it would appear that rest of what Weintraub has done, including getting excited, follows logically. Acceptance of a truly constant wage share as fact calls for much recasting of distribution and price theory and a basic policy change. Some sort of wage control machinery would become our chief weapon to fight inflation rather than our present reliance on monetary policy. As indicated by its title, this paper a study of statistics on labor's share in Canada. I hope that similarities and contrasts developed between Canadian and United States experience will resolve some of points at issue in this controversy. Since it Weintraub's formulation which has given fresh interest to topic I shall follow his lead in concepts and presentation. Because it somewhat easier to think in terms of percentages than of mark-ups, however, I shall include percentages also. Weintraub defines k as ratio of gross product (Z) to employee compensation (W) and takes as empirical measures of them U.S. Department of Commerce series Business Gross Product (BGP) and Compensation of Business Employees (Wb). Thus symbolically;

PpTHE primary purpose of this paper is to compute comparable deficit and surplus data for the central governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and \Vest Germany for the last several years. In these years of emphasis on the relationships between fiscal policy and both economic growth and inflation, there is value in having comparable quantitative central government surplus and deficit data at hand to support or to negate one's arguments. I survey here the data available, and finding it inadequate in detail and in aggregate, compute new figures using the countries mentioned above as subjects of the experiment.

tinue to neglect them for the present purpose. The specialists who now buy bills from the Treasury and then resell them to the ultimate investors are presumably being compensated for their activities. They have many alternatives. It is hard to see that they receive any economic rent that the Treasury in any way taps by its present method of auction. On the contrary, the Treasury enables those specialized abilities required to guess accurately the outcome of weekly auctions to earn a higher rent than they otherwise could. Private distribution costs are therefore higher under the present method of auction than they would be under the alternative method. Who pays these additional costs? Since we have assumed that the demand by ultimate investors is not affected, since the amount of bills is presumably not affected, since the Treasury does not succeed in imposing discriminatory prices on ultimate investors, the price paid by ultimate investors must be roughly the same whatever the method of distribution. It follows that the Treasury must pay the additional distribution costs by receiving less on the average from its bills than if it used the alternative method of auction. Two final comments. First, if this analysis is correct, it means that Brimmer's conclusion that noncompetitive bidding should be eliminated from present auctions is wrong. The introduction of such bidding reduces the unnecessary cost imposed by the Treasury on itself by the present method of bidding. Second, the defects of the present method of auction are quantitatively minor, and may be negligible, for bills because of their short maturity, large volume, and broad market. The defects are far more important for bonds and are more important, the longer the maturity. The main obstacle to using auctions to distribute longer-term securities has been the implicit assumption that the present method of auctioning bills must be used for them as well, as it has been in earlier experiments. The adoption of the alternative method would enable the Treasury to auction all securities issued, whatever their maturity, at a gain both to itself and to the economy.5

The article focuses on accounting principles for the investment credit. Opinion number two of the Accounting Principles Board indicates three separate and acceptable methods of accounting for investment credit. Method number one follows the concept of tax law by treating the credit as a reduction of the cost of the asset and apparently it is the method favored by the majority of the Board. One important advantage of this method is that the depreciable base is ordinarily the same for tax and financial purposes. Method number two follows the concept that the credit is a direct reduction of tax expense to be pro-rated over the life of the asset. An interesting aspect develops when full current use of the Investment Credit is not possible because of the limitation in the law. The investment credit carry-forward may be applied against the tax liability in any one or all of the five succeeding years. The entries under each method would be to write off the carry-forward against the tax liability.

Under the entity concept, financial statements are considered to be means through which a corporation's point of view is made known. As a corporation moves from one stage of development to another, changes in accounting procedures are needed so as to depict properly its changes in outlook and strategy for survival. So long as disclosures are made, and if coupled with education and/or public accountants' evaluations, it is contended that the use of alternative accounting procedures will not only make financial statement presentation more revealing and meaningful, but also permit corporations at different stages of development to compete for financial competence. The use of alternative accounting procedures is thus consistent with a corporation's objective of survival.

The article presents information on the difference in treatment by tax laws in various types and amount of income. As long as the income tax laws make a distinction between the taxation of ordinary income and capital gain, there is the difficult problem of determining the real nature of oil and gas as it is severed from the earth. On the other hand, the production of oil is a business and business income is considered to be ordinary income. Replacement Value, on the other hand, if oil is considered to be stock in trade, then percentage depletion provides a benefit. One method to assure the oil investor a return of his invested capital tax-free would be to charge all net profits to a reserve for depletion until the aggregate amount in the reserve equaled the amount of investment in the property; then no further depletion would be allowed. This would serve to reduce considerably the depletion now allowed the lessor. The tax laws are full of instances of differences in treatment for various types and amounts of income, due as much to political considerations as anything the. Percentage depletion is one more example of the conflict between proper determination of net income and the measurement of taxable income.

The article presents information on accounting examinations. The following problems were prepared by the Board of Examiners of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and were presented as the second half of the Certified Public Accountant examination in accounting practice on May 16, 1963. The candidates were required to solve problems 1 through 4 and either 5 or 6. The suggested time allowances were as follows: thirty-five to forty-five minutes for problem 1, thirty-five to forty-five minutes for problem 2, fifty to sixty minutes for problem 3, fifty to sixty minutes for problem 4 and fifty to sixty minutes for problem 5 or 6. Problem 1 presents certain objective questions related to accounting. Problem 2 is concerned with the preparation of the trial balance of a partnership firm. Problem 3 is concerned with the preparation of the shareholders accounts, the journal entries for the books of Groth Corp. recording the merger with Dekline Corp. as a pooling of interest. Problem 4 is concerned with the preparation of the company accounts for the machinery department.