Accounting is an Evolved Economic Institution

Accounting is an Evolved Economic Institution PDF Author: Gregory B. Waymire
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
We consider accounting from an evolutionary perspective. Accounting encompasses the creation of transactional records, the summarization of records in t-accounts, and the preparation of audited financial statements. Accounting's history spans at least 10,000 years dating back to the first human settlements in ancient Mesopotamia. Our focus is on the study of accounting history in three ways: providing useful thoughts experiments valuable to researchers interested in the development of modern practices, the use of historical data to test formal hypotheses about the origins of accounting practices, and the development of theories and related empirical evidence that explain accounting based on evolution and ecological rationality. Within this third area, we describe the basis for hypotheses and empirical analyses concerning six issues: (1) the emergence of recordkeeping, (2) the effect of double-entry bookkeeping on the scale and scope of economic organization, (3) the spontaneous emergence of norms of practice in accounting, (4) the impact of law, regulation, and taxation on accounting, (5) the demand for broad principles in evaluating accounting method choices, and (6) the relation between economic crises and major discontinuities in accounting practice.

Accounting is an Evolved Economic Institution

Accounting is an Evolved Economic Institution PDF Author: Gregory B. Waymire
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
We consider accounting from an evolutionary perspective. Accounting encompasses the creation of transactional records, the summarization of records in t-accounts, and the preparation of audited financial statements. Accounting's history spans at least 10,000 years dating back to the first human settlements in ancient Mesopotamia. Our focus is on the study of accounting history in three ways: providing useful thoughts experiments valuable to researchers interested in the development of modern practices, the use of historical data to test formal hypotheses about the origins of accounting practices, and the development of theories and related empirical evidence that explain accounting based on evolution and ecological rationality. Within this third area, we describe the basis for hypotheses and empirical analyses concerning six issues: (1) the emergence of recordkeeping, (2) the effect of double-entry bookkeeping on the scale and scope of economic organization, (3) the spontaneous emergence of norms of practice in accounting, (4) the impact of law, regulation, and taxation on accounting, (5) the demand for broad principles in evaluating accounting method choices, and (6) the relation between economic crises and major discontinuities in accounting practice.

Accounting is an Evolved Economic Institution

Accounting is an Evolved Economic Institution PDF Author: Gregory B. Waymire
Publisher: Now Publishers Inc
ISBN: 1601981600
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Accounting is an Evolved Economic Institution summarizes accounting history over the past ten thousand years and can be used as a primer of accounting history.

Economic Crisis and Accounting Evolution

Economic Crisis and Accounting Evolution PDF Author: Gregory B. Waymire
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
We study changes in financial reporting around economic crises from a historical perspective through the lens of punctuated equilibrium evolution. Historical evidence and contemporary economic analyses indicate that corporate financial reporting plays a minor role in precipitating economic crises but might help amplify them. Economic crises likely play a role similar to major shocks in biological environments by selecting accounting practices, accounting principles, firms and regulatory institutions for survival based on how well they adapt to post-crisis environments. Conscious attempts to improve accounting in the wake of crises, whether through market or political forces, may not prove as beneficial as hoped because we currently know far too little about the causes of economic crises or the consequences of abrupt changes to complex adaptive systems such as accounting. We outline several questions for future research.

Global History of Accounting, Financial Reporting and Public Policy

Global History of Accounting, Financial Reporting and Public Policy PDF Author: Gary J. Previts
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 0857248154
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
The Global Accounting History four volume set aims to establish a benchmark reference source that covers the evolution of accounting, financial reporting and related institutions for all major economies in the world in a comparable way.

More Than a Numbers Game

More Than a Numbers Game PDF Author: Thomas A. King
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118044614
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The world certainly suffers no shortage of accounting texts. The many out there help readers prepare, audit, interpret and explain corporate financial statements. What has been missing is a book offering context and discussion for divisive issues such as taxes, debt, options, and earnings volatility. King addresses the why of accounting instead of the how, providing practitioners and students with a highly readable history of U.S. corporate accounting. More Than a Numbers Game: A Brief History of Accounting was inspired by Arthur Levitt's landmark 1998 speech delivered at New York University. The Securities and Exchange Commission chairman described the too-little challenged custom of earnings management and presaged the breakdown in the US corporate accounting three years later. Somehow, over a one-hundred year period, accounting morphed from a tool used by American railroad managers to communicate with absent British investors into an enabler of corporate fraud. How this happened makes for a good business story. This book is not another description of accounting scandals. Instead it offers a history of ideas. Each chapter covers a controversial topic that emerged over the past century. Historical background and discussion of people involved give relevance to concepts discussed. The author shows how economics, finance, law and business customs contributed to accounting's development. Ideas presented come from a career spent working with accounting information.

Money as a Social Institution

Money as a Social Institution PDF Author: Ann E. Davis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317369270
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
Money is usually understood as a valuable object, the value of which is attributed to it by its users and which other users recognize. It serves to link disparate institutions, providing a disguised whole and prime tool for the “invisible hand” of the market. This book offers an interpretation of money as a social institution. Money provides the link between the household and the firm, the worker and his product, making that very division seem natural and money as imminently practical. Money as a Social Institution begins in the medieval period and traces the evolution of money alongside consequent implications for the changing models of the corporation and the state. This is then followed with double-entry accounting as a tool of long-distance merchants and bankers, then the monitoring of the process of production by professional corporate managers. Davis provides a framework of analysis for examining money historically, beyond the operation of those particular institutions, which includes the possibility of conceptualizing and organizing the world differently. This volume is of great importance to academics and students who are interested in economic history and history of economic thought, as well as international political economics and critique of political economy.

A History of Financial Accounting (RLE Accounting)

A History of Financial Accounting (RLE Accounting) PDF Author: J. R. Edwards
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134678886
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
This volume deals with the evolution of accounting from earliest times, and gives particular attention to corporate accounting developments since the Industrial Revolution. The author identifies the various sources of accounting practices employed by British companies, to demonstrate the main changes which have taken place, when they occurred and why. The author emphasises the need to understand the legal, social and economic context in which accountancy changes take place, and also studies the conflicts which arise between suppliers and users of accounting statements. The study concludes with an examination of the duties performed by the professional accountant, the extent to which these have changed in the course of time and how his position in society is reinforced by the activities of professional institutions.

Accounting Evolution to 1900

Accounting Evolution to 1900 PDF Author: Ananias Charles Littleton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description


The Economics and Politics of Accounting

The Economics and Politics of Accounting PDF Author: Christian Leuz
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780199286782
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
For the most part we have accepted the impartiality and objectivity of accounting and not recognized how accounting systems are embedded in a country's economic and legal framework. In this book, international scholars address a number of important questions about the role of accounting in society.

Economic Influences on the Development of Accounting in Firms

Economic Influences on the Development of Accounting in Firms PDF Author: George J. Staubus
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000363899
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 80

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Book Description
A view of accounting as a practical activity – a service function whose value depends on its adaptation to the environment in which it serves – is a good place to start this book, originally published in 1996. While arts such as music and drama can be said to serve human needs, their development presumably cannot be explained primarily by reference to the economic features of their environments. By contrast, an economic service function such as accounting develops in response to economic features of its environment. The objective of this book is to stimulate interest in explaining the development of specific features of accounting as we know it in the firms that are so important to the economies of Western industrialized countries by reference to the economic features of those firms. The emphasis in this work is on the influence of economic features of the firm in the development of accounting.