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This is a study of the relative focus on the balance sheet and income statement in The Accounting Review (TAR) and the Journal of Accountancy ( JA) during the period, 1926-1936. Perhaps the most significant change in accounting thought in the twentieth century has been the change in focus from the balance sheet and asset measurement to the income statement and income measurement that occurred sometime during the first half of the century. Midcentury accounting theorists (Paton, 1943;May, 1943) attribute the change from a balance sheet focus to an income statement focus with being the source of some of the most important and fundamental ideas of contemporary accounting.The real issue is the focus on asset measurement versus income measurement rather than the focus on the statements. The dominance of asset or income measurement has frequently been used to justify enhancing the "quality" of one of these two accounting elements at the expense of the "quality" of the other element given that statements must articulate (Garner, 1955, p. 306)[1]. Among those measurement practices are historical cost, matching expenses with revenues, and assets as pools of costs to be consumed in future operations. Garner (1955, p. 306) went so far as to state, "After a consideration of these factors there is little wonder that many authorities have noted that the method of stating the income of a company over a period of years has become in recent times a determining factor in its operating policy."With some exceptions, authors that have commented on the transition suggest that the focus on the income statement began to increase in the 1920s and became more important than the balance sheet sometime during the period

This paper investigates the association of executive changes with both income increasing and decreasing accounting changes. Two potential explanations for the hypothesis that firms with changes in CEOs are more likely to make accounting changes are examined. The earnings management explanation holds that new management intervenes in the financial reporting process in order to alter perceptions of effectiveness. The different perspectives explanation holds that managements have different tastes, perspectives, or views of the world than the predecessor. Evidence supports the different perspectives explanation.