Various interim reporting controversies can be traced to debates about the usefulness of interim cost allocations and their impact on the reported accounting numbers.'For example, some years ago Carman Blough argued that, from an information standpoint, there is a lack of usefulness in interim earnings due to expense allocation problems, and that" Ac-countants question whether statements that are subject to all of these inherent weaknesses would be very useful to anyone attempting to make investment decisions upon the basis of them"(Blough [1953]). More recent debates focus on this issue within the context of the" discrete vs. integral" view of the purpose of interim statements. The latter allocates costs on the basis of the pattern of interim sales. This suggests that knowledge of sales is sufficient to derive earnings. The discrete view treats each interim period as an independent reporting interval, in which case criteria for allocating total annual costs are somewhat arbitrary. This also implies that interim earnings lack informational content, but for a different reason.