Abstract The article focuses on test for principles. The word principles has been extensively used by both accounting practitioners and academic writers with little discrimination in the context between the truths of accountancy and the practices of accountants. In a treatise for educational use, inclusiveness may be necessary so that accounting will be presented as a whole. But the student cannot be well trained in clear thinking unless the elements out of which the subject matter is constructed are clearly distinguished one from another. There is a growing movement, in the interest of clear thinking and orderly practice, toward the formulation of concise propositions regarding accounting. Each of these aspects is complementary to the other, and both need to be held in mind for true comprehension. But it is a task of some moment to classify numerous propositions as either rules or principles, for none of them can be both. To do so one needs more than dictionary definitions. A test by which to recognize a proposition as a statement of accounting principle is needed. Those propositions which do not meet the test may be useful statements of accounting rules.

Abstract Almost four years have passed since the enactment of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, creating the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and transferring the administration of the Securities Act of 1933 from the Federal Trade Commission. Both Acts, viewed as a framework of regulation, implicitly assume the validity of traditional economic premises of securities distribution and trading, and the usefulness of the forms and mechanisms which had been developed to accommodate securities transactions. The legislation did not seek to fashion new instruments of investment procedure nor the alteration of basic concepts of the function of the investment banking process in the national economy. The process was to be invigorated and fortified by dissemination of information relating to the merchandise circulating in the markets. Administrative responsibility under the statutes is phrased in terms of protection of investors, and administrative authority, broadly speaking, is phrased in terms of disclosure.

Reviews the book "Cost Accounting," by John J. W. Neuner.

Journal Article The Mechanism of Interregional Redistributions of Money Get access J. C. Gilbert J. C. Gilbert Dundee Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 5, Issue 3, June 1938, Pages 187–194, https://doi.org/10.2307/2967446 Published: 01 June 1938

I. Use of index numbers by Commissions, 105.— II. Advantages of the method, 107.— III. Suggested method of constructing such indexes, 108.— Legal requirements which must be met, 111.— Practical difficulties, 112.— Indexes must be supplemented, 114.— IV. Prospect of acceptance by the Courts, 115.

Journal Article The Divisibility of Time Series Get access Elmer C. Bratt Elmer C. Bratt Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 5, Issue 2, February 1938, Pages 79–92, https://doi.org/10.2307/2967522 Published: 01 February 1938

Reviews the book "Problems in Accounting," by W.A. Hosmer.

Abstract The Executive Committee of the American Accounting Association has presented a tentative statement of principles, which deals with these questionable points. Everything that appears in this list could be definitely disposed of by every accountant if those principles, or rules, or standards, or conventions, or whatever you want to call them, were universally observed. But, if the universal observance of those particular rules and conventions and standards is not most desirable, then it behaves the accounting profession and those who are teachers and research workers in this field to decide what rules should apply. If qualifications and exceptions are necessary in connection with them, then the problem is to state them. It is a difficult, complicated task, but it is not impossible. Only our diffidence, our preoccupation with other matters, a certain degree of inertia in tackling these things, prevents our getting this job done in some satisfactory fashion. in some satisfactory fashion.

Abstract The article focuses on accepted principles of accounting. A person unacquainted with accounting or the work of professional accountants, might suppose that the accepted principles of accounting are embodied in definite form somewhere in accounting literature. He might expect to find an official document-a code, or set of regulations, or series of court decisions on the subject. In any field it may be true that the broad fundamental principles are so generally known and universally accepted that their formal statement becomes unnecessary. It is accepted without argument that the ordinary financial statement of a business enterprise is presented on a going concern basis, that conservative provision should be made for probable losses, while profits are not recognized until fully realized. There are a number of vital points, however, on which no such agreement exists. There is no official declaration covering them, and they are not covered positively and uniformly in the accounting textbooks or elsewhere in the literature of the profession. Accounting practice discloses only a complete uncertainty as to what constitutes the accepted principle which should be applied.