Adam Smith hypothesized that impersonal exchange was necessary for a society to develop specialized division of labor and create wealth. Douglass North and Vernon Smith argue that successful developed economies are the result of institutions. We hypothesize and provide evidence from ethnographic...

We develop our paper by defining "accounting history research" and posing six big picture questions about historical accounting evolution. The paper selectively summarizes accounting history over the past ten thousand years, organized around our six questions. This review provides useful...

We experimentally demonstrate a causal link between recordkeeping and reciprocal exchange. Recordkeeping improves memory of past interactions in a complex exchange environment, which promotes reputation formation and decision coordination. Economies with recordkeeping exhibit a beneficially...

Intangibles are ideas or knowledge about the natural (physical and biological) and socio-cultural worlds that enable people to better accomplish their goals, both in primitive societies and in modern economies. Intangibles include basic research and technology improvements as well as knowledge...

We develop the hypothesis that culturally evolved accounting principles (e.g., Objectivity) have their roots in how the biologically evolved human brain evaluates the desirability of reciprocal exchange. Our analysis is communicated in two related parts. In this first essay, Part I, we provide...

We develop the hypothesis that culturally evolved accounting principles are ultimately explained by their consilience with how the human brain has biologically evolved to evaluate opportunities for exchange. The primary function of accounting in evaluating exchange is providing information on...