Abstract Considerable attention has been given in accounting literature to the development and refinement of alternative procedures of measurement and calculation, However, the problem of establishing the descriptive validity of accounting measurements and calculations has only recently received direct attention. The necessity of verifying the descriptive validity of accounting calculations issues directly from the accounting objective of providing descriptions or explanations of economic activity that are relevant to the purposive actions and adaptive behavior of data users. There is a tendency in contemporary accounting thought to argue or assume that the propriety of accounting calculations is sufficiently established (1) by the employment of ratio measurement scales and/or (2) by the ability of the number system governing measurement to satisfy the mathematical requirements of a field. We submit that neither of these two factors establishes the descriptive validity of accounting calculations. Further, we conclude that verification of descriptive validity necessarily requires empirical operations in the form of independent measurements that prove the additive nature of the property being measured.
Kermit D. Larson (Sat,) studied this question.