IT is an accepted fact that business cycles exercise a profound influence upon the finances of American cities. The purpose of this study is to compare the cyclical fluctuations of business and of municipal expenditures and thus to throw some additional light on the cycles in American business during the last century. Expenditure data extending over a long period, roughly one hundred years, exist for three cities. These cities are Boston, Massachusetts; Providence, Rhode Island; and Rochester, New York. For other cities, expenditure figures are fragmentary or in a form not suitable for analysis. The data for the three cities mentioned were carefully collected by writers of their financial histories, were supplemented for this century from the Census Bureau's Financial Statistics of Cities,and are probably as accurate as such figures can be made.' They include all items which go to make up the category government cost payments; namely, maintenance, interest, and outlays. It was impossible to eliminate capital outlays, and their presence doubtless clouds the picture somewhat. All expenditures were placed upon a per capita basis to take account of the influences of changes in population either through natural growth or the annexation of new territory. In the absence of complete knowledge as to the dates of fiscal years, it has been assumed that all figures are for calendar years. The faultiness of municipal accounting must also be recognized as rendering the data inherently inaccurate. Such errors are probably small compared to the size and changes in the annual items dealt with, and are not serious for the purposes of this discussion.

Abstract This article discusses the theories of market crisis and the depression of balance sheets. The period of deflation should be a means of testing scientific opinions regarding the balance sheet. The replacement costs are approved on the basis of establishing price policies that is considered on two viewpoints, depending upon the objectives desired - as to the price calculations, and as to operating results in the accounts. In respect of price calculations, the majority of theoretical economists recognize the correctness of the theory today, even by those who consider the acquisition cost as the only true and real cost factor in the accounting computation of operating results. The advocate of the cost price theory keeps as an asset the 500 units of merchandise, the balance sheet value of which has no bearing on this question of price calculation. A full consideration of the causes of the depression would make it clear that the sting of the present crisis is in no way decreased by merely applying economist Fritz Schmidt's economic theory and the use of index numbers to show the present financial condition of businesses. The application of Schmidt's theory would of course improve the accounting procedure and the preparation of financial statements, and would help to clear up the managerial and economic condition of businesses when inventories are high and changes in capital structure take place suddenly.

Reviews the book "Accounting in Law Practice," by Willard J. Graham and Wilber G. Kats.

Reviews the book "Performance of Department Stores: 1932," by Edgar H. Gault.

Reviews the book "Financing the Consumer," by Evans Clark.

Reviews the book "Financial Examinations," by F.W. Thornton.

Abstract Income is the economic benefit coming in during a period of time. It consists of current income and of capital gains and losses. The general accounting habit of regarding income as though it were synonymous with realized income, although of some usefulness in practical affairs because it tends to substitute fact for fancy, should be more dearly recognized as both illogical and generally causative of the compilation of false information. All the income--realized, unrealized, and the total thereof--coming into existence during a period should be credited to that period, but the realized should continue to be separated from the unrealized.

Abstract In the June 1930 issue of the journal "The Accounting Review," there was published a series of short tests in accounting theory and practices, which had been developed at the University of Minnesota. Somewhat later, in March 1931, the journal carried a series of first-year examinations which had been given at the University of Illinois. In this article two sets of examination questions in first-year accounting are presented which have been developed and used at Cleveland College of Western Reserve University. These examination questions are again of the objective type, and they may be of interest in that they reveal further possibilities of using this type of test. Some of the questions included in the first set are, how should accounts ordinarily be arranged in the general ledger, what do the equities shown by the liability column of a balance sheet represent ordinarily, what is a balance sheet intended to show, what is meant by double entry, what does a debit mean in modern accounting and how should assets be listed in a balance sheet.

Reviews the book "Modern Foreign Exchange," by Franklin Escher.

Reviews the book "The Modern Corporation and Private Property," by Adolf A. Berle and Gardiner C. Means.