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The account books of the Tong Taisheng 统泰升 grocery store in Ningjin county of northern China in 1800–1850 constitute the most complete and integrated surviving archive of a family business in premodern China. They contain unusually detailed and high-quality statistics on exchange rates, commodity prices, and so on. Utilized once in the 1950s, the archive had been left largely untouched until our recent, almost accidental rediscovery. This article introduces this unique set of materials and traces the personal history of the original owner and donor. The story of this archive encapsulates the history of modern China and how the preservation and interpretation of evidence and records of Chinese economic statistics were profoundly impacted by the development of political ideology in modern and contemporary China. We briefly discuss the historiographical and epistemological implications of our findings for the current Great Divergence debate.

Occasionally scholars discover lost primary sources that change our understanding of a place or period. James Richards's day book is such a find. This 325-year-old ledger had been passed down through generations of a New England family and was stored in a pillowcase in a dusty attic when it was handed to the historian James E. Wadsworth. For years, James Richards, a prosperous and typical colonial farmer, tracked nearly five thousand transactions, involving more than six hundred individuals and stretching from Charlestown to Barnstable. Richards and his neighbors were bound together in a heterogeneous economy, reliant on networks of credit, barter, and sometimes cash. Richards practiced mixed husbandry farming, shipped goods by cart and by sloop, and produced and sold malt, salt, wool, and timber. The day book also reveals significant social details of Richards and his household, including his diverse trading partners, his extensive family connections, an Indian slave girl, and a well-dressed female servant. Available in both print and electronic editions, fully transcribed, annotated, and introduced by the editor, this record of economic life reinforces and challenges our understanding of colonial America.

Este libro contiene los rasgos fundamentales de los estados contables desde una perspectiva global y asimismo práctica, pues a la vez que se exponen los regulados actualmente por las normas contables españolas e internacionales, incluye aquellos otros que de forma voluntaria pueden elaborarse. Se parte de los tradicionales balance de situación y cuenta de pérdidas y ganancias, para analizar progresivamente los estados de origen y aplicación de fondos en circulante y tesorería (estado de flujos de efectivo), así como los de valor añadido y de cambos. Se ha incorporado también aquella información de carácter social y medioambiental que, actualmente, ha alcanzado gran protagonismo tanto por parte de los organismos internacionales como por numerosas multinacionales. La idea subyacente es que, en este tipo de informes, aun cuando el objeto es (o parece ser) muy diferente al económico, la metodología utilizada tanto en su elaboración como verificación es contable. En definitiva, el lector podrá tener una idea más exacta de qué es lo que podemos saber de una empresa a través de su información contable-financiera.

Abstract This study examines the financial history of three waqfs (those of Mevlânâ Celâleddîn-i Rûmî, Sadreddîn-i Konevî, and Selîm II) in Konya through their account records covering the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. These waqfs (charitable foundations) had large agricultural holdings, and their financial developments consequently reflect the local agricultural conditions in central Anatolia. This analysis of the waqf account books deals with the short-term financial difficulties resulting from harvest failures and increasing grain prices. The widespread Celâlî rebellions seem to have caused agricultural crisis and the financial decline of waqfs in the early seventeenth century.

This paper discusses a number of topics pertaining to personal accounts in account books in the period roughly between 1200 and 1800. The main emphasis is on two topics, namely the use of account books as evidence in courts of law, and bad and doubtful debts and their accounting treatment. Examples from various countries and periods are provided to illustrate the discussion, which is not intended to be exhaustive.

Economists explain the far-reaching implications of blockchain technology on society and on how we are governed.

Economists explain the far-reaching implications of blockchain technology on society and on how we are governed.

The story of well-known patrician and merchant Felice Brancacci after his exile from Florence in 1435 has hitherto gone untold. This article offers the first scholarly analysis of newly uncovered letters, account books, and a will composed by Felice after his banishment. These documents convey Felice’s lived experience of exile, highlighting how he navigated his social, political, and commercial roles in central Italy by networking with merchants and elites as well as his sense of isolation and devastating loss. The study contributes to our understanding of the experiences of a remarkable number of political exiles from Florence, and from Italian city states more broadly, during the Renaissance.

This essay explores Monet’s rise to great wealth, drawing on evidence provided by the artist’s three account books, housed in the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. Assimilating unpublished data, the essay charts Monet’s growing annual income as well as the increasing individual prices for his paintings. It argues for the central role of the artist’s serial painting process in his financial success. The essay examines the seminal contribution of Parisian dealers to Monet’s growing wealth, principally the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. It also explores Monet’s willingness to work with a range of other dealers in order to raise his prices. The essay looks at the significant role of Monet’s collectors, and particularly the internationalization of his clientele, as a key factor in his success. Overall, it argues for Monet’s commercial acumen, and in general, his recognition of the importance of his own agency in the creation of his market.

Fourteenth–fifteenth century food refuse from the kitchen of the Esztergom archbishopric shows a significant diachronic increase in cyprinid bones, in particular those of carp. Meanwhile, contributions by large acipenserids and carnivorous species (catfish/wels, pike, percids) declined. Contemporaneous account books indirectly suggest that the archbishop’s kitchen must have increasingly relied on farmed carp fish. Sturgeons were a commodity sold by the archbishopric but rarely consumed. Expensive pikes were bought at low prices for the archbishop, possibly related to the small size of individuals found in the deposits. The poor representation of high-status fish is consonant with the scarcity of bones from large game in an assemblage dominated by domesticates. Wild game is represented by brown hare, partridge, and a variety of thrushes. These finds confirm that the foodways in the archbishop’s palace were more modest than expected on the basis of its social status. Increasing contributions by cyprinids and sterlet to the assemblage also coincide with the high relative frequency of their recipes in a sixteenth century cookbook.