An economist's view of costs contains both explicit and implicit costs.  Explicit costs are accounting costs, and implicit costs are the opportunity costs of an allocation of resources (i.e., business decisions).  Accountants subtract total cost from total revenue and arrive a total accounting profits.  An economist, though, would include in the total costs of the firm the profits that could have been made in the next best business opportunity (e.g., the opportunity cost).  Thus, there is a significant dissimilarity in how accountants' and economists' view profits B economic profits versus accounting profits.