A New Dimension to Breakeven Analysis
1966; Wiley; Volume: 4; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/2490143
ISSN1475-679X
Autores Tópico(s)Capital Investment and Risk Analysis
Resumo* Associate Professor of Industrial Administration, Purdue University. 1 C. Devine reports several instances of fixed-variable analysis in the XIX century beginning with Dionysius Lardner, 1850, Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 6, p. 590, 1964 edition. D. Solomons tells of one Henry Hess, who in 1903 plotted fixed and variable costs so as to obtain breakeven points, Studies in Costing, 1952, p. 37. Hess article appears in Engineering Magazine, 1903, p. 367, Manufacturing: Capital, Profits and Dividends. Ned Chapin, Journal of Business, April, 1955, The Development of the Breakeven Chart: A Bibliographical Note, records similar origins for breakeven analysis. For the industrial engineering contribution to the subject, reference should be made to the work of Rautenstrauch, Knoeppel and Alford: for example, W. Rautenstrauch, Successful Control of Profits, 1930, Chap. V; Knoeppel and Seybold, Managing for Profit, 1937, Chap. IV; W. Rautenstrauch, Economics of Business Enterprise, 1939, Chap. VI; Alford and Beatty, Principles of Industrial Management, 1940, which attributes the invention of the breakeven chart to Rautenstrauch, p. 615. first breakeven chart to appear in the Accounting Review is presented by James Dohr, Budgetary Control and Standard Costs, Vol. VII, March, 1932, pp. 3132. No further discussion of the technique appears in this review till L. F. Brush's description in 1943, Graphical Analysis of Expense, AR., XVIII, October, 1943, pp. 331-338. Treatment of breakeven in the NA(C)A bulletins starts after World War II, and in 1949 Na(C)A Research Study 17 is devoted to the subject: Research Series 16, 17 and 18 (Dec., 1949), Analysis of Cost-Volume Relationships. An early study in the Journal of Accountancy is Malcolm Pye's two-part report on his master's thesis, How to Determine Breakdown Points..., Vol. 86, August, 1948, pp. 133-137; How to Simplify Calculations..., Vol. 86, September, 1948, pp. 201-203. Finally, Joel Dean made a major contribution to post-World War II interest in the subject by calling attention to the potentialities of breakeven analysis in two articles directed at both economists and accountants: American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings, May, 1948, pp. 153-164, Cost Structures of Enterprises and Breakeven Charts; Australian Accountant, Vol. XXI, Nos. 10 and
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