Value and Accounting between History and Theory: the Italian Case

Abstract

The paper looks for the philophical and economic roots of accounting conceptions of value, and the following methods of evaluation, through the main accounting 'classical'authors of Italian doctrine. The basic assumption is that 'value' is not only an accounting concept but a multidisciplinary category that, incidentally for other disciplines, is central for accounting itself. The authors focus on the period following the 'precepts' period (late XV - early XIX century) and preceding the 'Zappian Revolution' of 1926 that gave birth to "Economia aziendale". So the Lombard School (Crippa and Villa), the Tuscan one (Cerboni and Rossi), Emanuele Pisani, the Venetian one (Besta, Alfieri and the first Zappa's production) are to be found after, of course only for what concerns value and evaluations. Still after, having set a brief link with more modern evolutions of the debate, and fertilized by this comprehensive discussion, a final critical synthesis of the whole is outlined with an attempt to point out first theoretical sentences about value and evaluations useful either for historical and for merely speculative purposes.