ISSN:
0951-3574
Source:
Emerald Fulltext Archive Database 1994-2005
Topics:
Economics
Notes:
The wild boom and slump of 1845-1847 was the most important of the nineteenth century railway manias, in terms both of its scale and effects on the economy as a whole. It has almost invariably been seen as a market irrationality, a view fundamentally challenged by Bryer's theorisation of it as a deliberate and collusive device of the "London wealthy", aided by central government, to swindle provincial middle class investors. This analysis also greatly extended previous perspectives on the rôle of accounting by asserting that accounting practices were crucial to the success of the process and were thus "deeply implicated" in a great, class-based swindle. The acceptance of such a perspective would have important implications for the way we understand the functioning of accounting and capitalism in the mid-nineteenth century, but this paper instead argues that such notions are misconceived, looking to both the evidence that was available when Bryer's paper was written and to recently collected data on the depreciation accounting practices of the time.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/09513570310505970
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