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This study examines how bookkeeping was used to determine the financial results of the Datini Partnership in Pisa in the late 14th century. It highlights the difference between accounting procedures in a medieval partnership and accounting procedures in individual medieval enterprises and over time. Building upon previous studies, the analysis of archival documents and the construction of a model of the flow of information between accounts and account books reveals the details of the bookkeeping procedures in the firm and a complete picture of the calculation of the financial result of the partnership in 1394. The study found that the need for the partnership to identify profits resulted in a change in the bookkeeping method for inventory that improved the information quality when used in the process of identifying operating results and the overall financial result. JEL Classifications: M41; N83. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Profit on merchandise accounts (a forerunner of the income statement) in a sole proprietorship in Pisa that officially operated between 1386 and 1392, but took several months to finally end its activities, which it did in 1393. The Profit on merchandise account was where the balance on each goods account was transferred when all the items recorded in it were sold. The principal contribution of this paper is the identification of a unique approach to medieval product costing that ensured indirect expenses on merchandise were recovered from customers when sales took place, while earning an average return of over 10 percent on those costs. It also highlights the problems encountered when working with archival material that has deteriorated over time; and presents a research method that reconstructs missing data using the trail to original entries and contra entries recorded in double entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Accounting & Financial History Research Journal / Muhasebe ve Finans Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi. is the property of Association of Accounting & Financial History Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Tree‐ring records provide global high‐resolution information on tree‐species responses to global change, forest carbon and water dynamics, and past climate variability and extremes. The underlying assumption is a stationary (time‐stable), quasi‐linear relationship between tree growth and environment, which however conflicts with basic ecological and evolutionary theory. Indeed, our global assessment of the relevant tree‐ring literature demonstrates non‐stationarity in the majority of tested cases, not limited to specific proxies, environmental parameters, regions or species. Non‐stationarity likely represents the general nature of the relationship between tree‐growth proxies and environment. Studies assuming stationarity however score two times more citations influencing other fields of science and the science–policy interface. To reconcile ecological reality with the application of tree‐ring proxies for climate or environmental estimates, we provide a clarification of the stationarity concept, propose a simple confidence framework for the re‐evaluation of existing studies and recommend the use of a new statistical tool to detect non‐stationarity in tree‐ring proxies. Our contribution is meant to stimulate and facilitate discussion in light of our results to help increase confidence in tree‐ring‐based climate and environmental estimates for science, the public and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of De Computis is the property of Asociacion Espanola de Contabilidad y Administracion de Empresas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyses the earliest known use of reserve accounting in the late fourteenth century. It reveals the dual purpose of this reserve, the entries made, including those made when the reserve was utilized and when the remainder was written-back to be distributed to the owners in the following accounting period. The research method is archival, using logical–analytical modelling of a merchant's accounting records from 1392 to 1400. It finds that a reserve was initially an estimate of costs that had been incurred the amount of which was unclear, and that it was then extended to act as a suspense account to balance the ledger when errors in the double entries could not be identified. In doing so, this study also reveals changes made in how the entries were made to the reserve as bookkeepers sought more efficient ways to make them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to analyze the characteristic features of the Enlightenment in Russian accounting in relation to the activity of its outstanding representative Alexander Galagan, who followed the motto, proclaimed in the essay "An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?" by Immanuel Kant, "Sapere aude!" (Dare to know!). For the first time in the English language literature, Galagan is spoken about not only as a theorist but as an accounting historian and a teacher. A detailed description of his works and views is presented. The article's attention is focused on Galagan's main aim: improving the status of accounting as a science. Following the results of the research, the following hypothesis has been advanced: which period of time should be regarded in Russian accounting as the Enlightenment? It has also been explained why Alexander Galagan can be considered as a model of Enlightenment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tree growth at northern boreal treelines is generally limited by summer temperature, hence tree rings serve as natural archives of past climatic conditions. However, there is increasing evidence that a changing summer climate as well as certain micro-site conditions can lead to a weakening or loss of the summer temperature signal in trees growing in treeline environments. This phenomenon poses a challenge to all applications relying on stable temperature-growth relationships such as temperature reconstructions and dynamic vegetation models. We tested the effect of differing ecological and climatological conditions on the summer temperature signal of Scots pine at its northern distribution limits by analyzing twelve sites distributed along a 2200 km gradient from Finland to Western Siberia (Russia). Two frequently used proxies in dendroclimatology, ring width and maximum latewood density, were correlated with summer temperature for the period 1901–2013 separately for (i) dry vs. wet micro-sites and (ii) years with dry/warm vs. wet/cold climate regimes prevailing during the growing season. Differing climate regimes significantly affected the temperature signal of Scots pine at about half of our sites: While correlations were stronger in wet/cold than in dry/warm years at most sites located in Russia, differing climate regimes had only little effect at Finnish sites. Both tree-ring proxies were affected in a similar way. Interestingly, micro-site differences significantly affected absolute tree growth, but had only minor effects on the climatic signal at our sites. We conclude that, despite the treeline-proximal location, growth-limiting conditions seem to be exceeded in dry/warm years at most Russian sites, leading to a weakening or loss of the summer temperature signal in Scots pine here. With projected temperature increase, unstable summer temperature signals in Scots pine tree rings might become more frequent, possibly affecting dendroclimatological applications and related fields. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates impairment and depreciation accounting in the 13th to 15th century. It finds that the first known instance of impairment accounting was in 1321, while for depreciation, it was 1399 not, as has previously been claimed, 1299. The study demonstrates the difference in approach at that time between the two forms of adjustment and shows that impairment was the original form of adjustment for reduction in asset values, a form that was applied in situations where physical assets had been lost, or deteriorated, or devalued over the reporting period. In contrast, depreciation was algorithmic, linked to a time-based straight-line depreciation charge equivalent to 10 percent per annum. These findings not only relocate recognition of the emergence of depreciation provisions to the end of the 14th century but, also, from France to Spain. However, in both cases, in Italian firms with Italian accountants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1494, Luca Pacioli was the first to describe the accounting statements that he called the ''bilancio del libro'' and ''summa summarum.'' While the ''bilancio del libro,'' or trial balance, never raised doubts as to its usefulness, the obscure interpretation of the summa summarum in the treatise and the inclusion of both statements by Pacioli led to varied perceptions of the value and meaning of this section of his treatise. This paper presents the results of many years of research in the archives of the merchant of Prato, Francesco Datini's companies between 1363 and 1410. It reports the finding of the earliest known example of a ''bilancio del libro'' inside the Ledger in 1395 when, in one accounting cycle, the company simultaneously formed both documents. The bilancio del libro served as a trial balance and the summa summarum was used as a statement to be transmitted to the head office. The research method employed was logical and analytical modeling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During 2003-2006 summer excavation seasons of the Ust-Voykar settlement (65°40' N, 64°30' E) located in northwestern Siberia on the left bank of Gornaya Ob river, 121 samples of larch were collected. Living trees collected nearby were used to cross-date settlement construction. On the basis of living larch trees a 446 year (1554-1999) chronology has been constructed. Calendar dates for 101 samples of archaeological wood were established by cross-dating. Together, the living and archeological material result in a 903 year long chronology. This chronology shows similar variations as the Yamal and Polar Ural chronologies and provides new material that can be included in future climatic reconstructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]