A randomness problem arises because accounting deals with observed economic and social data, not data from a randomized experiment, as is the norm in the physical sciences. The data values should not be viewed simply as deviations from some imagined unique regression surface subject to random deviations, as is appropriate in the natural sciences. The observed data for each variable are actual economic or social outcomes. The individual data points in these studies are unlikely to reflect an identical economic process. The reporting of operating income across firms, for example, will differ depending on the firm-specific calculation process. In fact, the available data are actual observations of economic or social events, albeit perhaps inaccurately recorded or recorded under different circumstances. Initially, we need to admit that the data samples we use in accounting and economics in general are not random samples, defined as a sample drawn from a well-defined population by a process that assures that each member of the population has an identical probability of being selected in the sample. Random samples are simply not possible in our discipline. This means that the sample is more appropriately viewed as a population.