IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/acctbr/v37y2007is1p49-62.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The SEC rules historical cost accounting: 1934 to the 1970s

Author

Listed:
  • Stephen Zeff

Abstract

From its founding in 1934 until 1972 the SEC, and especially its chief accountant, disapproved of most upward revaluations and general price-level restatements of fixed assets as well as depreciation charges based thereon. This article is a historical study of the evolution of the SEC's policy on upward revaluations and restatements of non-financial assets. It treats episodes prior to 1972 when the private-sector bodies that established accounting principles sought to gain a degree of acceptance for such revaluations and restatements but were consistently rebuffed by the SEC. The SEC reversed its policy on upward revaluations during the period from 1972 to the end of the 1970s. Throughout the article, the author endeavours to explain the factors that influenced the successive positions taken by the SEC.

Suggested Citation

  • Stephen Zeff, 2007. "The SEC rules historical cost accounting: 1934 to the 1970s," Accounting and Business Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(S1), pages 49-62.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:37:y:2007:i:s1:p:49-62
    DOI: 10.1080/00014788.2007.9730085
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00014788.2007.9730085
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00014788.2007.9730085?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Baker C. Richard, 2019. "Commentary on Braun’s “The Ecological Rationality of Historical Costs and Conservatism”," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-9, March.
    2. Marc NIKITIN, 2013. "Can Aristotle Help Us Specify the Very Nature of Management problem?," LEO Working Papers / DR LEO 2253, Orleans Economics Laboratory / Laboratoire d'Economie d'Orleans (LEO), University of Orleans.
    3. Ray Ball, 2009. "Market and Political/Regulatory Perspectives on the Recent Accounting Scandals," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(2), pages 277-323, May.
    4. Stephen A. Zeff, 2008. "IFRS Developments in the USA and EU, and Some Implications for Australia," Australian Accounting Review, CPA Australia, vol. 18(4), pages 275-282, December.
    5. Olante, Maria Elena & Lassini, Ugo, 2022. "Investment property: Fair value or cost model? Recent evidence from the application of IAS 40 in Europe," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    6. Marc Nikitin, 2014. "Can Aristotle Help Us Specify the Very Nature of Management Problem?," Working Papers halshs-01015082, HAL.
    7. Bougen, Philip D. & Young, Joni J., 2012. "Fair value accounting: Simulacra and simulation," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 390-402.
    8. Stephen A. Zeff & Vaughan S. Radcliffe, 2010. "The Ontario Securities Commission on Accounting and Auditing from the 1960s to 2008 – Part 1: 1960s to 1985," Accounting Perspectives, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 29-53, March.
    9. Corinne Cortese & Lee Moerman & Millicent Chang, 2022. "Is the extractive industries standard still fit for purpose?," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 62(2), pages 2807-2838, June.
    10. Gwilliam, David & Jackson, Richard H.G., 2008. "Fair value in financial reporting: Problems and pitfalls in practice," Accounting forum, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 240-259.
    11. Glover Jonathan, 2014. "Have Academic Accountants and Financial Accounting Standard Setters Traded Places?," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 17-26, February.
    12. Richard Macve, 2010. "The Case for Deprival Value," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 46(1), pages 111-119, March.
    13. Macve, R.H., 2015. "Fair value vs conservatism? Aspects of the history of accounting, auditing, business and finance from ancient Mesopotamia to modern China," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 124-141.
    14. Ray Ball, 2024. "Accounting for Inflation: The Dog That Didn't Bark," Abacus, Accounting Foundation, University of Sydney, vol. 60(1), pages 1-12, March.
    15. Jannis Bischof & Holger Daske, 2016. "Interpreting the European Union’s IFRS Endorsement Criteria: The Case of IFRS 9," Accounting in Europe, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 129-168, May.
    16. Iulia Jianu & Roxana Ruiu & Ionel Jianu & Mihaita Ruiu, 2013. "The Value and the Evaluation Process in Accounting," Journal of Knowledge Management, Economics and Information Technology, ScientificPapers.org, vol. 3(6), pages 1-15, December.
    17. Erb, Carsten & Pelger, Christoph, 2015. "“Twisting words”? A study of the construction and reconstruction of reliability in financial reporting standard-setting," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 13-40.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:acctbr:v:37:y:2007:i:s1:p:49-62. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RABR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.