In this book Mark Harrison rebuilds and analyses the Soviet economy's wartime statistical record, examining its prewar size and composition, and wartime changes in GNP, employment, the defence burden, and the role of foreign aid. Complementing classic long-run growth studies, the book compares the Soviet experience with that of other great powers. It emphasises the severity of current costs and capital losses arising from the war, which had a negative effect on GNP that persisted well after the end of the war. The results are based on a comprehensive analysis of hitherto closed official documents, shedding light on the dimensions of the Soviet war effort, the comparative economics of the war, and its long-term impact on the Soviet economy.

Accounting is frequently portrayed as a value free mechanism for allocating resources and ensuring they are employed in the most efficient manner. Contrary to this popular opinion, the research presented in Accounting at War demonstrates that accounting for military forces is primarily a political practice. Throughout history, military force has been so pervasive that no community of any degree of complexity has succeeded in. Through to the present day, for all nation states, accounting for the military and its operations has primarily served broader political purposes. From the Crimean War to the War on Terror, accounting has been used to assert civilian control over the military, instill rational business practices on war, and create the visibilities and invisibilities necessary to legitimize the use of force. Accounting at War emphasizes the significant power that financial and accounting controls gave to political elites and the impact of these controls on military performance. Accounting at War examines the effects of these controls in wars such as the Crimean, South African and Vietnam wars. Accounting at War also emphasizes how accounting has provided the means to rationalize and normalize violence, which has often contributed to the acceleration and expansion of war. Aimed at researchers and academics in the fields of accounting, accounting history, political management and sociology, Accounting at War represents a unique and critical perspective to this cutting-edge research field.

A Five Books Best Economics Book of the Year A Politico Great Weekend Read “Absolutely compelling.” —Diane Coyle “The evolution of modern management is usually associated with good old-fashioned intelligence and ingenuity...But capitalism is not just about the free market; it was also built on the backs of slaves.” —Forbes The story of modern management generally looks to the factories of England and New England for its genesis. But after scouring through old accounting books, Caitlin Rosenthal discovered that Southern planter-capitalists practiced an early form of scientific management. They took meticulous notes, carefully recording daily profits and productivity, and subjected their slaves to experiments and incentive strategies comprised of rewards and brutal punishment. Challenging the traditional depiction of slavery as a barrier to innovation, Accounting for Slavery shows how elite planters turned their power over enslaved people into a productivity advantage. The result is a groundbreaking investigation of business practices in Southern and West Indian plantations and an essential contribution to our understanding of slavery’s relationship with capitalism. “Slavery in the United States was a business. A morally reprehensible—and very profitable business...Rosenthal argues that slaveholders...were using advanced management and accounting techniques long before their northern counterparts. Techniques that are still used by businesses today.” —Marketplace “Rosenthal pored over hundreds of account books from U.S. and West Indian plantations...She found that their owners employed advanced accounting and management tools, including depreciation and standardized efficiency metrics.” —Harvard Business Review

One of the most challenging elements during any armed conflict and its aftermath is the need to determine the fate of the missing and to support families dealing with uncertainty. Another layer of complexity is added in cases where a missing person might have been involved in criminal activity. This book examines how international law meets these two distinct, but intertwined, needs. It shows that the duty to account for missing persons is cross-cutting in nature, requiring measures needing implementation before, during, and after armed conflict. At the same time, those measures cannot substitute any required to establish responsibility for IHL/IHRL violations and international crimes. Exploring specific examples, the book examines the role that international law plays in the international community's attempts to articulate humanitarian and accountability-driven efforts when dealing with the missing. By so doing, it suggests how linkages between such efforts can be established, both through legal and policy avenues.

Accounting for Value teaches investors and analysts how to handle accounting in evaluating equity investments. The book's novel approach shows that valuation and accounting are much the same: valuation is actually a matter of accounting for value. Laying aside many of the tools of modern finance the cost-of-capital, the CAPM, and discounted cash flow analysis Stephen Penman returns to the common-sense principles that have long guided fundamental investing: price is what you pay but value is what you get; the risk in investing is the risk of paying too much; anchor on what you know rather than speculation; and beware of paying too much for speculative growth. Penman puts these ideas in touch with the quantification supplied by accounting, producing practical tools for the intelligent investor. Accounting for value provides protection from paying too much for a stock and clues the investor in to the likely return from buying growth. Strikingly, the analysis finesses the need to calculate a "cost-of-capital," which often frustrates the application of modern valuation techniques. Accounting for value recasts "value" versus "growth" investing and explains such curiosities as why earnings-to-price and book-to-price ratios predict stock returns. By the end of the book, Penman has the intelligent investor thinking like an intelligent accountant, better equipped to handle the bubbles and crashes of our time. For accounting regulators, Penman also prescribes a formula for intelligent accounting reform, engaging with such controversial issues as fair value accounting.

Post-conflict reconstruction is one of the most pressing political issues today. This book uses economics to analyze critically the incentives and constraints faced by various actors involved in reconstruction efforts. Through this analysis, the book will aid in understanding why some reconstructions are more successful than others.

The Routledge Companion to Accounting History presents a single-volume synthesis of research in this expanding field, exploring and analysing accounting from ancient civilisations to the modern day. No longer perceived as the narrow study of how a mysterious technique was used in past, the scope of accounting history has widened substantially. This revised and updated volume moves beyond the history of accounting technologies, accounting theories and practices and the accountants who applied them. Expert contributors from around the world explore the interfaces between accounting and the economy, society, culture and the polity. Accounting history is shown to offer important insights into such disparate phenomena as the evolution of capitalism, control of labour, gender and family relationships, racial exploitation, the operation of religious organisations, and the functioning of the state. Illuminating the foundation and development of accounting systems, this updated, classic book opens the field to a new generation of accounting scholars and historians around the world.