Application of choice theory to the selection of an appropriate accounting method has been dealt with in a number of recent publications.' Difficulties in pursuing this approach arise, however, when we introduce a number of users of accounting information. We cannot, in general, ascribe a group utility, or social welfare, function to a set of multiple users. As a result the notion of identifying the appropriate accounting system by maximizing some conceptually well specified objective function is often inappropriate in a multiperson setting.2 Nevertheless, there are numerous special cases which do admit to a group utility function. Obvious examples include a team and deferral to an expert (or dictator). More significant is the fact that similar results are achievable when the risks and returns of a cooperative decision are shared among the cooperating individuals in a Pareto optimal manner. For example, under suitable conditions, a partnership will admit to a group level or partnership utility function. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that it is possible to view the problem of accounting method choice in a partnership as a formal, welldefined optimization problem. This has the theoretical advantage of explicitly linking the accounting choice to the partnership's economic situation, as well as opening up the possibility of studying optimality existence and characterization. Moreover, it provides a juxtaposition with extant accounting prescription. In particular, I shall demonstrate that, within the framework adopted, existing concepts of partnership accounting are in-

IN The general theory of employment, interest and money we can discover what gives a book eternal youth. It is the quality of imperishable relevance to the essential, insoluble problems of time-bound humanity. A problem solved, a situation resolved into its ultimate constituents, a veil finally and irrevocably withdrawn, is the end of a matter. can salute the author who did these things, but we can no longer look into a living face and see our own enigmas and perplexities reflected there. Keynes's book, however, is a great enigma; it is the image of the vaster enigma of conduct, decision, and history itself. It is doubtless paradoxical to say that Keynes's book achieves its triumph by pointing out that the problems it is concerned with are essentially beyond solution. The business of scholars, scientists and philosophers is to gain and give understanding. But only the best of them tell us that they can describe only the shadows in the mouth of the cave. All problems are solvable, the characteristic stance of our civilization, afflicts us with a terrible myopia. If all problems are to be solvable, we must be very careful what kinds of thing we admit to the category of problems. They must be carefully tailored to fit our selfassumed omni-competence. The task which suits us, which we can do with astounding ingenuity and surprising effect, is that of analysis, the application of reason to the dismemberment of a body of information declared or assumed to be self-sufficient, and its re-constitution into a prescription for conduct. It is the selfsufficiency of such supposed bodies of information which removes them so immeasurably far from the harsh truth of things. Why was not Keynes satisfied with the Treatise? It had the Keynesian touch. It knotted up a mass of perplexities and cut them with one Alexandrine stroke. The Fundamental Equations were extremely concise and ostensibly simple. Had Myrdal been at Keynes's elbow to interpret the dream, they would have done the trick, thrown back the bolt and enabled the gates to swing open upon an undiscovered country. What was wanted was some clue to the nature of the inducement to invest. Keynes in the Treatise sought for it in a WicksellianAustrian theory of the nature of capital. (If one draws a diagram of what Keynes says about capital in the Treatise, there will appear a Hayekian triangle of the stages of production.) But this did not seem to go quite to the heart of the matter. What, in its essential nature, was the Natural Rate of Interest? This was the difficulty, the source of dissatisfaction, that led to a fresh attempt as soon as the Treatise was published. The General theory devotes a whole Book to the Inducement to Invest. The apparatus is the confrontation with each other of the Marginal Efficiency of Capital and the rate of interest. What is the M.E.C.? learn its real nature in Section V of Chapter 11. It depends on expectation. And what does expectation depend on? To find that stated, with full uncompromising explicitness, we have to look in a part of the canon which few economists seem able to endure the sight of-or else they have never heard of it. It is his reply to his critics. It appeared in the Quarterly Journal of Economics for February 1937, and it declares unequivocally that expectations do not rest on anything solid, determinable, demonstrable. We simply do not know. The General theory is a detour. (Is everything in economics a detour?) It is a detour from a path which might have led direct from the Treatise to the Q.J.E. article. Keynes and many of the readers of the Treatise were worried about how investment and saving could differ from each other. The dilemma needed only the same liberating insight that can ex-

Journal Article Systematic Job Search and Unemployment Get access S. C. Salop S. C. Salop Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 40, Issue 2, April 1973, Pages 191–201, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296647 Published: 01 April 1973

Journal Article The Ordering of Portfolios in Terms of Mean and Variance Get access John S. Chipman John S. Chipman University of Minnesota Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 40, Issue 2, April 1973, Pages 167–190, https://doi.org/10.2307/2296646 Published: 01 April 1973

A large literature has grown up in urban economics in the last decade. It can be broadly classified into: 1) studies of the growth, composition (industry and population), and spatial form of urbanized areas; and 2) analyses of problems such as congestion, discrimination in housing and employment, and the fiscal difficulties of cities. This paper concentrates on the former, where the contributions from other disciplines have been as important as those from economics. Part One of the paper deals with models of growth and intra-urban land use. Part Two is devoted to urban simulation and efforts to build large scale statistical models for analyzing, among other things, the impact of alternative government policies on patterns of urban development.

I. Introduction, 121. — II. The results of the calculations, 125. — III. Summary, 130.

Journal Article The Harried Leisure Class: A Demurrer Get access Edmund S. Phelps Edmund S. Phelps Columbia University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 87, Issue 4, November 1973, Pages 641–645, https://doi.org/10.2307/1882033 Published: 01 November 1973

I. The equilibrium of a surplus labor economy, 394. — II. The role of commodity taxation, 398. — III. The role of general factor taxation subsidy, 401. — IV. Factor taxation subsidy in one industry, 403. — V. Conclusions, 407.

Journal Article An Econometric Model of the Medicare System: Reply Get access Martin S. Feldstein Martin S. Feldstein Harvard University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 87, Issue 3, August 1973, Pages 490–494, https://doi.org/10.2307/1882018 Published: 01 August 1973