Abstract The article examines the work of researchers Edgar O. Edwards and Philip W. Bell for the measurement of business income. According to the author, income is the result of a calculation, an inference, and it seems hardly correct to apply the term realized or realizable to it. It is unrealistic to attempt to find the specific impacts of price changes and price-level changes item by item, and then to add all tile pieces together to get a total effect. The complex of assets and obligations is a complex in which changes, in respect of some items, in one direction are automatically accompanied by changes, in respect of other items. It is not therefore reasonable to dissect the effects as if they were the consequences of quite separate decisions. It seems quite sufficient to discover the gross effects. The author disagrees with the argument of Edwards and Bell in so far as it relates to the underlying incidents affecting the investments of firms and the necessity of bringing into account the effects of events other than transactions.
R. J. Chambers (Fri,) studied this question.