Accounting History

This article presents an analysis of how the accounting profession evolves and develops in relation to analytical postures of colonialism and globalisation. Whilst these postures have been addressed in the literature as complementary, this article analyses them as two separate periods, whereby the influence of globalisation took over the influence of colonialism. The article investigates the agential possibility of local actors in instituting a change in the local accounting profession across the two periods. By empirically examining the case of the accounting profession in Lebanon, an Asian, Middle Eastern, and former French colony, this article aims to rethink the essence of the colonial legacy, provide an alternative understanding of the coloniser–colonised relationships and investigate how global neo-liberalism took the upper hand in influencing the local accounting profession. This marks a transition from a diminishing colonial influence towards a dominating global neo-liberal influence.

This narrative aims to provide an overview of public and private accounting of the ancient Roman empire, by covering a relatively unstudied period from the Roman Republic to the early Principate. Scattered references are accessed in essential Roman literary sources such as Cicero, Livy and others, supplemented by legal sources and contributions from eminent Roman historians such as Badian and Mommsen. The narrative for public accounting covers the organisation and role that scribae quaestori of the aerarium played in state accounting during the Republic. Specific attention is also given to the state fiscal administration reforms of Augustus that created a departmentalised civil service overseeing the imperial fiscus. The narrative for private accounting examines selected opinions on private law from Gaius Institutes and Digesta of Justinian to demonstrate the sophistication of Roman accounting practices, focusing on obligation by book entry. The narrative concludes with a detailed examination of the modern debate over the analysis that Columella provides for viticulture profitability.

This article offers a unique analysis of cameral accounting (CA) in local governments (LGs) in Czechia during the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including legislation, textbooks, and original accounting records, it traces the development of CA before its replacement by double-entry accounting in 1953. The analysis compares Czech developments with Walb's (1926, Die Erfolgsrechnung privater und öffentlicher Betriebe. Wien-Berlin: Spaeth and Linde) four-phase model, identifying both parallels and divergences. It further explores the practical benefits of CA for Czech LG accounting in the examined period. The findings reveal that while CA initially served as a progressive and functional tool in the mid-nineteenth century, it gradually evolved, despite repeated adjustments, into a conservative mechanism resistant to reform in the twentieth century.

The 1722 renovation of Palermo's Great and New Hospital marked Sicily's first modern healthcare reorganisation, departing from mediaeval models. Using archival sources and the institutional logic lens, this study examines the evolution of accounting at this hospital in the early Enlightenment, providing richer information for decision-making. The merchant rector played a key administrative role within the hospital. This was because the merchants held significant influence over the governance of Palermo. This renovation occurred within the Italian Enlightenment, initially under the House of Savoy and later the Austrian Habsburgs, predating Bourbon-era studies in the European context.

Female education in the nineteenth century was a multifaceted issue, related to social stratification, gender roles, and middle-class construction. In unified Italy, a country with a very high level of illiteracy, the experience of female schools is peculiar because of their cultural, historical, and post-Resurgence values and educational methods. This article, inspired by Foucault's approach to disciplinary institutions, is based on many primary and secondary sources. The role played by accounting in supporting the education process of a female school in Florence is shown in a detailed manner. The pupils, coming from the Italian middle and upper class, were educated not only in Italian, history, geography, drawing, calligraphy and maths, but also in foreign language, music, singing, dance, good manners and catechism of the Catholic Church together with household accounting, all what was necessary to build the ‘perfect’ woman and mother. To do this, the Florentine school distributed space and managed time, adopted tools related to admission policy, uniforms, and diet and applied examination rituals supported by punishment and rewards. The article adds its results to the literature about accounting and discipline in educational institutions.

A recent literature in macroeconomics argues that instead of commercial banks taking in deposits from savers to fund loans, lending itself actually creates deposits. This outcome has been interpreted as lending creating deposits out of thin air or merely because of accounting. I argue that neither interpretation satisfactorily explains the outcome. Rather, I show that a hitherto forgotten explanation from two late nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars can easily demonstrate how lending creates deposits.