Journal Article A Comparison of Welfare Criteria Get access Robert E. Baldwin Robert E. Baldwin Cambridge, Mass. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 21, Issue 2, 1953, Pages 154–161, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296007 Published: 01 January 1953

THE treatment of institutions remains one of the most unsatisfactory areas in national income accounting. Standing at the end of a long process of evolution in both concepts and methods, the recognized experts in the field are still compelled to admit that their procedures, best exemplified today by those of the United States Department of Commerce, remain open to much basic criticism.' This paper proposes to reformulate the current treatment of bank income, including a reopening of the discussion of financial intermediaries in their role as contributors to the national income and product. It is believed that the methodology suggested here is simpler, more in accord with reality, theoretically sounder, and of greater analytical value in deriving series of bank income and, ultimately, of productivity estimates. In the beginning of this study, the concepts proposed and those now in use by the Department of Commerce will be described.2 As a second step, the two opposing methods will be examined for their underlying rationale and philosophy. Third, technical procedures will be compared by means of simplified accounting models. Fourth, a number of refinements and qualifications both of principle and technique will be introduced, which are important in facilitating the passage from didactic framework to the final statistical series of income and product originating in banking. These series, if they are to be useful, must be capable of being integrated into the total national accounts. How this can be done will be demonstrated at various points along the way. I

Abstract To institute a workable plan for a system of internal audit there must be present those essentials of an underlying structure of management without which a good internal auditor is likely to suffer from continued frustration and the best internal auditor, if he can stay on the job and sweat it out, may find his work singularly ineffective. The first of these organizational essentials is a full-scale recognition of the nature and interdependence of authority, responsibility, and accountability: administrative powers that may be called the three basic operational activators. Second among the essentials is the firing of centers of activity within the various parts of the organizational structure. Third is the empowering of each center with the three operational activators in just the right degree: a quantity and quality of authority designed to provide some freedom of action, the exercise of judgment, no matter how limited, and the development of enthusiasm and pride in work done; a charge of responsibility that will develop, exercise, perhaps even tax supervisory capacities, with substantial curtailment of the need of continuous scrutiny from above; and a scheme of reporting by virtue of which automatic and as far as possible informal accountability is the order of the day.

Abstract The article highlights that the tax notes were presumably purchased with the intent that they be used for the payment of federal income and excess profits taxes, it is also good accounting practice that they are shown as a deduction from the accrued liability for such taxes in the current liability section of the balance sheet. The purpose of this article is to investigate the current popularity of this alternative treatment of U.S. government securities in corporate balance sheets and to reexamine the argument for allowing Treasury Tax notes as deductions from accrued tax liabilities. The data required for this study are derived primarily from the 1950 balance sheets of 107 large non-financial corporations. From the information furnished by this sample, some idea can be obtained as to the extent to which government securities are employed as liability offsets and the effects this practice may have on financial ratios, particularly the current ratio. In the opinion of the writer, this way of handling tax notes runs counter to the much publicized accounting doctrines of full disclosure and consistency or comparability.

Reviews the book "The Federal Taxing Process," by Roy Blough.

Reviews the book "Taxation and the American Economy, and Economic, Legal, and Administrative Analysis," by William H. Anderson.

Reviews the book "Accounting for Inflation."