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This section presents abstracts of articles published in the March 1965 issue of the journal Oxford Economic Papers. G. C. Harcourt's article, The Accountant in a Golden Age, examines the accuracy of the accountant's measure of the rate of profit under Golden Age conditions where uncertainty is absent, expectations are fulfilled and the rate of profit has an unambiguous meaning. The accountant's rate of profit is defined as the ratio of accounting profit to the historial-cost value of assets. Four main cases are considered: the accountant's rate of profit in a business with a balanced stock of like machines; a growing stock of like machines; a balanced stock of like machines plus financial assets associated with depreciation allowances not used for replacement expenditures; and a growing stock plus financial assets. K. K. F. Zawadzki's article, Are Open Market Operations Effective?, examines conflicting views of several writers on the modus operandi of open market operations and on their effects on the level of bank deposits. The conclusion drawn from this examination is that open market operations can be effective in reducing the cash base of the banking system and in causing a multiple contraction of bank deposits provided that certain conditions are satisfied.

The article presents various titles and abstracts of research papers related to geography by the Association of American Geographers. Some of papers included are "Problems of Geographic Influence," by Albert Perry Brigham, "Some Geographic Factors Influencing Brazilian Trade," by Walter S. Tower, "Postglacial Migrations of Vegetation in the Middle West," by Henry Allan Gleason, "Bases for Dividing the United States into Physiographic Provinces," by N. M. Fenneman, "The Losses of Nebraska," by G. E. Condra.

The article reports on the history of information on goodwill valuation. Commercial use of the English term "goodwill" is reported to have begun as early as 1571. Following a paper by Francis More on goodwill read to the Chartered Accountants' Students' Society of Edinburgh in 1891 there has been an increase in information about goodwill valuation as well as accounting in general including the paper by P.D. Leake read to the Leicester Chartered Accountants' Students' Society in 1914. The treatment of goodwill in statements on subscriptions for shares in joint stock companies is a difficult problem.

Explicit recognition of uncertainty is one feature of much recent work in managerial accounting and, more generally, work in the areas of planning and control. This has led to an increased interest in the use of subjective probability assessments. Often overlooked, however, are the possibilities for subordinates to induce organizational suboptimization via their reported subjective probability assessments. We discussed two specific problems associated with reported subjective probability assessments: (1) dishonest assessments and (2) substantively deficient assessments. Two schemes for alleviating these problems -- the use of scoring rules and Bayesian model comparison procedures -- were then presented and discussed. The limitations and speed-of-effect of each scheme were considered, yielding some nonobvious implications. The organizational framework used throughout this paper incorporated some important features from the theory of teams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This section presents abstracts of papers which were published in the July 1965 issue of "Review of Economic Studies." In the model postulated in the paper "The Relationship Between Output and Employment in British Manufacturing Industries," businessmen are assumed to treat their output, capital and technology as exogenous in the short run. The endogenous variables are the level of employment and the effective number of hours worked per man. In the paper "Business Saving and Errors in Variables," cross-section, double-logarithmic, least squares regressions of business saving on profit are estimated for samples of companies drawn from the brewing and textiles industries, and from manufacturing industry as a whole, in Great Britain for each year 1949-63. The paper "Optimum Growth in an Aggregative Model of Capital Accumulation" elaborates the problem of optimum saving first discussed by F. Ramsey in 1928. For this purpose a centralized, closed economy is postulated; it is assumed to be adequately described by the aggregative, neoclassical model first closely analyzed by R. M. Solow. According to the paper "Entry in a Cournot Market," the theory of Cournot equilibrium was developed as a general theory with perfect competition and monopoly as special limiting cases. According to Cournot, as the number of firms in an industry increases, industry output increases, the output of any one producer becomes a smaller proportion of total industry output, price falls, and in the limit price and output approach that of a perfectly competitive market.

This article evaluates studies on accounting theory, conducted by a committee of the American Accounting Association in 1973. The most striking feature of the papers is their similarity. They are essentially two versions of the same work. Both preliminary papers consist of two principal sections: the nature of theories in the physical and social sciences; and the classes of accounting theories, as the authors are able to distinguish them. All of the papers survey pertinent works by mathematicians, philosophers and scientists, and conclude that accounting qualifies as an empirical discipline.

The basic model for determining optimal lot sizes in production-inventory systems is: K = SB+F B/Z +Z/2 Sl, (the lot size = Z). If interactions between two or more products of the system cause restrictions to be laid upon the lot sizes, the technique of Lagrangian multipliers may be used for solving the lot size problem. A successful practical application of the Lagrange-technique depends largely upon the availability of electronic data-processing equipment.
In business situations, deviations from optimal lot sizes are often required for reasons not included in the model. As shown in the second part of this paper, the economic consequences of the deviations can be determined approximately without any great calculation. It is also indicated that the economic consequences caused by moderate deviations are rather small compared with the total costs involved in the whole production inventory system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a section of abstracts relating to marketing theory. They include "Functionalism as an approach to marketing theory," "Bartlett effect and the presistance of induced opinion change," and "Communicator credibility and communication discrepancy as determinants of opinion change."

The article presents a section of abstracts relating to marketing management. They include "Corporate control and capitalism," "The impact of the corporation on classical economic theory," and "Another view of corporate capitalism."

It was the objective of this study to determine if the closure phenomenon could phenomenon could be purposefully applied to increase the memory for specific advertising material. Significant findings were obtained in two experiments and were not obtained in a third experiment. The degree of incompleteness was offered as an explanation for the differences between experiments I, II, III. It was concluded that memory is a function (in part) of the degree of active participation, the degree of self-involvement and the degree of reward in the material which is to be recognized, and that the closure phenomenon can bring about each of the above. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents an analysis of Central European economies, nationalistic protectionism, cartelization, the role of big business in fascism and industrial development. Inflation is noted to have helped the business prospects of small business. Wholesale and retail price indexes from Austria between 1914 and 1938 are presented. Distribution cost patterns and the efficiency of production are closely tied to American economic conditions. Regimentation, restrictions and licencing in business is discussed with respect to its implications on business and the prospects of fascism.

Among management, labor leaders, academic experts, and government administrators the division of opinion on the financing of unemployment compensation is much more pronounced and profound than is true of the other social insurances — Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, workmen's compensation, or temporary disability insurance. This paper attempts to put in perspective the magnitude of unemployment compensation taxes and to analyze three current issues in the financing of unemployment compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of new books related to economics and business. Some books related to general economics are "University Economics," by A.A. Alchian and W.R. Allen; "Positive Economics and Policy Objectives," by T.W. Hutchison and "The Age of Inflation," by J. Rueff. Some books related to price and allocation theory, income and employment theory, related empirical studies and history of economic thought are "The Growth of Television Ownership in the United Kingdom Since the War-A Lognormal model," by A.D. Bain; "External Economies in Production," by P. Bohm; "Economics Choice of Human and Physical Factors in Production," by G.K. Boon is an attempt to measure the micro-economic and macro-economic possibilities of variation in factor proportions of productions. "Economic Growth in a Free Market," by G.H. Borts and J.L. Stein; "Balanced Distribution," by G. Erickson; "The Life of John Maynard Keynes," by R.F. Harrod; "History of Economic Doctrines-An Introduction to Economic Theory," by E. Heimann and "Consumption Patterns in Israel," by N. Liviatan.

The article offers interesting insights into the character and particularly the business methods of one of the greatest English newspaper proprietors. The absence of any mention of the newspaper Bell's Universal Advertiser from the few published studies of the career of its proprietor, John Bell, is both surprising and unfortunate. Certainly Bell's reputation and chief importance in the history of journalism rests on his conduct of various important periodicals. Nevertheless, the Universal Advertiser has an interesting place in his history. While the paper lasted for only a short two months, the preparations for its birth were a full eight years in the making. It was a favorite brainchild of Bell's and on it he lavished in full his considerable and unusual talents as a newspaper publisher. The Universal Advertiser's history, essentially the story of Bell's activities in preparing, publishing, promoting, and defending the journal, throws light on important social and economic factors influencing the behavior of newspapermen of the time. Newspaper proprietors throughout the eighteenth century shared with most industrialists the problem of adjusting to the steady growth of the consumer market.