This article proposes a way of historical progress of accountancy. Accountancy's infancy dates back to the earliest days of human agriculture and civilization, the Sumerians in Mesopotamia an another civilization, when the need to maintain accurate records of the quantities and relative values...

This paper examines the pervasiveness of earnings management across 31 countries between 1990 and 1999. It documents systematic differences in earnings management across different clusters of countries. We propose an explanation for these differences based on the notion that insiders, in an...

We investigate the determinants of corporate financial reporting in an unregulated setting. Prior to World War I, limited liability companies in Belgium were obliged to publish financial statements, but financial reporting was virtually unregulated. Investor protection was generally very poor....

Le dispositif juridique français, fidèle au modèle de la décision publique, place l’expert dans une situation subalterne par rapport au Juge qui le choisit, lui fixe sa mission, lui impartit des délais et finalement le rémunère, et à qui il doit apporter un éclairage strictement...

During the second half of the nineteenth century, five Great Exhibitions took place in Paris. The French state was highly involved in their financing and management which led to the implementation of public finance rules. Because of specific managerial constraints, public accounting systems and...

Following Colbert's Ordonnance of 1673, most of whose provisions were reiterated in the Code de Commerce, 1807 and the Law of Bankruptcy, 1838, traders in France were under a legal obligation to keep accounts of their business activities. In the event of bankruptcy, traders were potentially...

Accounting as a branch of economic science and research is not in the center of attention of economists, whether they are focused macroeconomic or Business Administration (microeconomic). Whoever, it is necessary to underline the crucial importance of accounting for the formation of a number of...

This paper assesses the impact of judicial independence on equity markets. North and Weingast (1989) argue that judicial independence and other institutional changes inaugurated by the Glorious Revolution of 1688-89 allowed the English government credibly to commit to repay sovereign debt and...

In this article, we evaluate underpricing of initial public offerings (IPOs) at the Berlin Stock Exchange between 1870 and 1896. In contrast to modern data, first day returns were extraordinary low and averaged less than five percent, even during the speculative period of the early 1870s....

This paper discusses how Genoese bankers collected money at exchange fairs. This money was then lent to the King of Spain - through the asientos - from the mid-sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries. Genoese bankers raised capital at the exchange fairs, which were typical short-term credit...