Dissolving the value-price transformation Rubik's cube: A response to Steve Toms’ review of Accounting for Value

2021 ◽  
pp. 103237322110432
Author(s):  
Rob Bryer

Toms disputes the Temporal Single-System Interpretation's claim to have refuted Bortkiewicz’s influential charge that Marx's transformation from values to prices is ‘inconsistent’. This is a claim that Bryer supports with a replacement cost accounting interpretation, which Toms asserts leaves the ‘problem’ an ‘unsolved’ Rubik's cube. This conclusion is seriously misleading, the note argues, which illustrates the dangers from failing to always take the ‘social turn’ in accounting history research.

1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Auman Reed

This paper examines the magnitude of the reporting bias inherent in the historical cost accounting of a firm's physical capital. Reported depreciation data pertaining to U.S. Steel Corporation (currently USX) between 1939 and 1987 are compared with standardized historical cost figures and replacement cost estimates. The findings suggest that replacement cost depreciation would have provided more information about U.S. Steel's ability to maintain its productive capacity than historical cost depreciation did. Thus, this analysis provides an illustration of one of the primary arguments for replacement cost accounting.


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