This article presents information on an experimental study concerning the impact of budget feedback information and the budgetary process on decision and performance. Two types of learning which can be helped by accounting feedback are, learning of the system or model that affects payoffs and learning which decision strategies or policies are effective in coping with ill-structured and changing decision environments. Information useful in these two senses has previously been labeled model and action effectiveness values of information. In order to generate some empirical data on the value of such information, a set of business-game experiments was conducted. These experiments are described in the following section of this paper, but first consideration of sequential decision processes is necessary. The explicit hypotheses as to how each information structure and each motivational treatment are expected to affect performance and learning depend upon which theory of decision one bases his hypotheses on and which of several problem or environmental classifications the particular decision problem fits most closely.

The article presents the author's response to a commentary related to his article on the concepts of information value and accounting. The author said that he does not share the faith and enthusiasm of the the writer of the commentary as to the viability and practical utility of the pure information economics approach as an aid to choosing alternative accounting systems. He said that the commentary's writer seems to misinterpret the thrust of his argument. He also does not share the disdain of the commentary's writer concerning historical measures used as estimates of information value.