Abstract The article focuses on the formats of certified public accountants (CPA) commercial law examination. The author suggests that the examination should be designed to evaluate the candidate's analytical ability to recognize legal problems, his knowledge and understanding of basic rules of law, and his ability to express his reasoning and conclusions in clear and concise language. Two times each year, in May and November, prospective candidates take the uniform examinations for the designation of Certified Public Accountant. One of the five examinations given is in commercial law. The author recommends that the commercial law paper should be strictly composed of a series of six to eight essay questions, secondly, the design and format would consist of four to six factual problems in each question. These problems would deal with the various areas of law in which the accountant is faced on an everyday basis. Third, the candidate would not be told what the problems are. He would therefore be required to first analyze the facts to determine the problem and then to write a clear and concise reasoning, using basic rules of law in arriving at a logical conclusion.

Abstract The article reviews the leading tax problems of U.S. investors in foreign companies in 1966. It also considers how accountants with their background in evaluating income measurement can aid in making tax barriers more suitably distributed for companies or individuals in the U.S. who are interested in direct investments abroad. The author concludes that it is true that equitable treatment concerning the imposition of taxes on a party operating in different jurisdictions is a responsibility primarily of the party himself. In addition, he observes that the problems are different from the ones usually found because of the international aspect, but many of them can be better resolved after a fresh look at the income theory angle.

Abstract The article presents a study which evaluated the position of the Committee of Professional Ethics of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants on management services. This evaluation involved both a priori and an empirical analysis of two contentions. The first contention states that potential conflicts of interest between management consulting and the factual independence of a certified public accountant (CPA) are limited to two situations. The second contention states that acting as a management consultant does not impair the CPA's appearance of independence; that is, it does not suggest to a reasonable observer a conflict of interest.

Abstract The difficulty many students experience in applying ceiling and floor limitations in the pricing of inventory items at the lower of cost or market has been the subject of discussion at a conference "Teachers' Clinic" at the Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama in July 1964. Students should not experience any difficulty in computing the ceiling and floor in the typical exercise in which the estimated selling price, costs of completion and disposal, and normal profit margin are given. But the selection of the appropriate inventory value from four possible choices; cost, market, ceiling, and floor; can be a confusing number game to students. If these four items are arranged with their values in descending numerical order, the third value will be the correct answer under most circumstances. This rule stems from a logical analysis of the selection process involving the relationship of values and limitations imposed by the ceiling and the floor. The article discusses this rule in dealing with cost accounting for inventories.

Reviews the book "Some Questions in Graduate Accounting Theory."

Abstract The article presents a discussion on the article "Teaching Approaches to Elementary Accounting," by Lloyd D. Doney and Richard C. Neumann, published in the July 1965 issue of the journal "The Accounting Review." The previous article had highlighted that the use of programmed learning material did not make any significant difference in performance of accounting students, which has been criticized in this article. The author holds that the exposure of students to few items on the evaluation test, prior to mid-semester exams, gave them a significant advantage. The fact can be elaborated by the argument that final examination performance on repeated items was improved about 40% at the University of Massachusetts. It is also noteworthy that the only performance equal even to the third of these was the top performance in the honors section at the University. Thus, it may be that programmed learning has a desirable impact on individual students, even where it does not seem to influence the average performance of the group.

Reviews the book "Establishing Accounting Principles—A Crisis in Decision Making."

In this paper we consider the specification and estimation of the Cobb-Douglas production function model.After reviewing the "traditional" specifying assumptions for the model which are based on deterministic profit maximization, we develop a model in which profits are stochastic and in which maximization of the mathematical expectation of profits is posited."Sampling theory" and Bayesian estimation techniques for this model are presented.1. INTRODUCTION IN THIS PAPER we take up the problem of specifying and estimating a model of a profit maximizing firm operating with a Cobb-Douglas production function.Our model differs from the traditional production model considered in the literature, in that we assume that: (a) the production process is neither instantaneous nor deterministic; and (b) entrepreneurs are aware of the stochastic nature of production in their profit maximizing endeavors.This fundamental conceptual difference in our approach leads us to a new model with properties different from that of the traditional model.2Also we develop both sampling theory and Bayesian estimation procedures for the new model.The order of presentation is as follows.In Section 2 we review the traditional model, and then go on in Section 3 to formulate the new model.In Section 4, sampling theory estimation procedures are developed for the new model.In contrast with the traditional model, it is found that classical least squares provides consistent estimators of the parameters of the Cobb-Douglas production function.With a normality assumption, these are also unbiased and maximum likelihood estimators.Finally, in Section 5, a Bayesian analysis of the new model is presented.2. REVIEW OF THE TRADITIONAL MODEL According to economic theory, output, inputs, and profit of a firm are determined by the production function, the definition of profit, and the conditions of profit maximization.If the production function is of the Cobb-Douglas type with two