Toward a Science of Accounting

Abstract

In accounting, the authors have defined the problem as the choice among alternative conventions, but then the people have confounded themselves by making the selection of conventions depend upon unspecified circumstances, thereby precluding resolution of the problem. The problem, they say, is that it is impossible to make the measurements that the author suggest and, therefore, the people must resign ourselves to conventional allocations of past expenditures on the basis of estimates of the future. That may be an appropriate artistic or accounting response, but it would not be considered an appropriate scientific response. Most accounting issues are not researchable in the scientific sense of subjecting them to tests of empirical and theoretical import. There are disputes among scientists just as there are disputes among accountants. The difference is that scientific issues and disputes are subject to resolution by the application of scientific tests.