ABSTRACT
Economics and accountancy are two disciplines which draw their raw material from much the same mines. From these raw materials, however, they seem to fashion remarkably different products. They both study the operations of firms; they both are concerned with such concepts as income, expenditure, profits, capital, value and prices. In spite of an apparently common subject-matter, however, they often seem to inhabit totally different worlds, between which there is remarkably little communication. When I studied economics at Oxford a generation ago, it was not considered necessary for an economist to know any accounting at all. Indeed, as far as I recall, not even the opportunity to study accounting was given. It was no doubt regarded as a pedestrian, commercial, workaday subject, quite unworthy of being admitted to those dignified halls. The situation, I am sure, is better at the newer institutions, both in Britain and the United States. Even in the United States, however, accounting is rarely integrated in any systematic or satisfactory way into an economist’s education. The student of economics frequently has to pass a single required course in accounting, and that is the end of it. There is very little intellectual intercourse between economists and accountants at the professional level. The faults here may be more on the side of the economists than of the accountants. It is very rare to find an economist who reads the accounting journals. It is almost equally rare, however, to find an accountant who is well versed in economics.
