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ACCOUNTANCY: A PROFESSION FOR EDUCATED MEN.

The Accounting Review 1939 14(3), 250-258
In this article, the author discusses issues and beliefs on accountancy as a profession for well-educated men. He observed different views and publishing of various eminent members of the accountancy profession and researchers regarding this topic. According to these studies the thought that members of the accountancy profession should have well-developed intellectual, moral and cultural faculties is a relatively new idea in the history of the profession. The author reports that the accountancy profession had its beginning in England, probably at some time during the seventeenth century. It seems quite probable that the early public auditors, or public accountants, of England worked single-handed, but in the course of the increased recognition and prestige which these men obtained from the field of business it became necessary for the principal to secure the services of assistants. The idea of the desirability of a technical education for those entering the accountancy profession gradually took form after the year 1900. It is argued that the profession needs greater educational as well as personality qualities because the professional should have engagements in complex and technical duties, such as, auditing, the installation or revision of systems of accounts, special investigations, municipal or other governmental auditing and system installation, engagements pertaining to the financial affairs of trusts, receiverships, bankrupt and decedents' estates, and audit and system installation engagements involving cost accounting.

Debts and Recovery (Book).

The Accounting Review 1939 14(1), 86-87
Reviews the book "Debts and Recovery: A Study of Changes in Internal Debt Structure From 1929 to 1937 and a Program for the Future," by Albert C. Hart.

ACCOUNTING, REPORTS TO STOCK-HOLDERS, AND THE SEC.

The Accounting Review 1939 14(3), 203-236
In this article, the author focuses on the adequacy and reliability of corporate accounting reports provided to stockholders and security analysts. He tries to point out the gap in the regulation of accounting reports under Securities Exchange Act, based on around seventy selected corporate balance sheets and income statements for 1937. He also discusses a number of limitations inherent in the accounting material made available to investors. Accountants and investment analysts today are agreed that the income statement is much more significant and informative to the investor than the balance sheet. It reports that the Act applies to corporations with securities listed on national securities exchanges and requires such corporations to file with the Commission and with the exchange annual reports which comply with the standards imposed by the Commission and the exchange. The article undertakes to break additional ground in the inevitably forthcoming critical analysis of accounting categories and accounting concepts.