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End Of Betterment Accounting: A Study Of The Economic, Professional, And Regulatory Factors That Fostered Standards Convergence In The U.S. Railroad Industry, 1955-1983, Jan Richard Heier, A. Lee Gurley
End Of Betterment Accounting: A Study Of The Economic, Professional, And Regulatory Factors That Fostered Standards Convergence In The U.S. Railroad Industry, 1955-1983, Jan Richard Heier, A. Lee Gurley
Accounting Historians Journal
On January 26, 1983, the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) announced that it would require all railroads under its regulatory jurisdiction to change from Retirement-Replacement-Betterment (RRB) accounting, to a more theoretically sound depreciation accounting for matching revenues and expenses. The change was needed because RRB did not allow for the recapture of track investment, leaving the railroads with limited capital to replace aging track lines. Over the previous three decades, it had become painfully obvious to everyone that the industry's economic woes were the result of archaic accounting procedures that lacked harmony with the rest of American accounting standards, but the …