TY - JOUR TI - Railroad accounting history and the modigliani and miller theorems: 1891-1922 DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T3R78H3X PY - 2015 AB - Accounting history has been approached in two ways from the standpoint of methodology. The mainstream in this field has focused on the relationship between accounting measurement and institution building. This literature includes studies of such questions as how accounting measurement helped business and government to make significant decisions. Other scholars in this tradition have focused on the social origins of the practitioner community and how this contributed to the development of professional organizations. Still other researchers have focused on the connections between accounting and the emergence capitalistic institutions. The second approach, which I pursue in this dissertation, involves the application of empirical methodologies that provide new insights about the significance of historical events germane to the evolution of accountancy. While empirical methodologies figured prominently in economics history they have not been utilized extensively in the study of accounting’s past. I have selected as my research focus, the US railroad history which was America’s first big business and which also had an excellent body of statistical research and accounting reports prepared by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) beginning in 1887. My research is informed by the methodologies used by Modigliani and Miller (MM) in their 1958 and 1963 studies. They provide a useful analog that I employ evaluating railroad cost of capital and capital structure at three important historical turning points. Like Modigliani and Miller I evaluate how a change in an important parameter affects railroad financing. Unlike MM my comparison is between conditions in imperfect markets. Specifically I measure the impact on rail finance of stock market crash in 1893, the introduction of mandatory depreciation after Hepburn Act (1906), and federal income taxation after 1913. KW - Management KW - Railroads--Accounting KW - Accounting--History LA - eng ER -