The article presents a reply to the article "Measurement in Current Accounting Practices: A Critique," by Raymond J. Chambers, published in the July 1, 1972 issue of the journal "The Accounting Review." First of all, the author states that the book is definitely concerned with accounting as it is. Although policy implications are not completely lacking, the primary purpose of the book is to promote a better understanding of the foundations of accounting as it is, or more specifically the foundations of accounting measurement as observed in current accounting practice. Although an objection is raised, no alternative definitions are given in the critique and it is hard to evaluate the definition without comparing it with an alternative. It seems most natural to consider objectivity in measurement as the degree of independence of the measure from variations in the personal characteristics of the measurers. The author believes that the above responses cover all of the major issues raised in the critique. Because of space limitations, the author had to omit some responses to the remaining questions and comments in the critique, although such responses have been communicated.

We do not have any quarrel with the statistical analysis in Kinney's note. In our first paper on this subject, we acknowledged that an auditor may sample high-valued items because of their normal association with high variance.' Similarly, sampling from a high error rate category may be explained as contributing to representative sampling because of the higher degree of contribution in reducing the error of estimate. Finally, random sampling is consistent with the auditor wishing to make statistically valid statements about the population from which a sample is chosen. Our papers,2 however, attempted to point out that there may be nonstatistical reasons which also explain the above set of auditors' behavior; i.e., auditors may sample high-valued items to cover as much of the total dollar value in the population as possible (protective sampling); they may sample high error rate categories to correct as many items as possible; and they may use random sampling to create a greater degree of uncertainty as to the scope of future audits to deter potential errors in the future (preventive sampling).