Coincidences, contingencies, multiplicities and patterns

Abstract

Considered one of the most famous movie lines – perhaps given that Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) delivers it when Ilsa Lund (Ingrid Bergman), his former flame, suddenly walks into his Café Américain in Casablanca. Rick’s comment is definitely more memorable than ‘what a coincidence’. For historians, the concept of coincidence generally has a negative connotation – an inadequate basis for the explanation of events. Hekster (2016, 217) notes that historians frequently link coincidence to ‘contingent circumstance’, ‘chance’ even ‘luck’. In this issue, we examine not ‘gin joints’ but the place of Irving Fisher in accounting. Yet we consider the broader theme as follows: Can we trace definitively the emergence of ideas and concepts to a particular place and time? Alternatively, for theories with a ‘history’, is it possible to confirm their provenance? When explaining the influence of Y on Z, do we leave open and admit the very real possibility that this influence results more from our interpretations versus what others would argue to be historical fact. It leaves open the space in which (seemingly) similar ideas emerge coincidentally in different places at different times, or perhaps re-emerge contingently as circumstances and events change. Researchers in cultural evolutionary theory have examined these issues in terms of how ‘cultural evolutionary processes can link spatial and temporal dynamics in producing predictable patterns’ (Müller and Winters 2018, 22). While the disciplines of economics and finance have not neglected Fisher, the debt owed to him in accounting has not had the same acknowledgement. Our focus is the possible link and contribution of his theoretical works to fair value accounting and by extension, financial reporting and standard setting. Cardao-Pito and Ferreira champion Fisher’s legacy and argue for greater recognition of his theory of economic and accounting value, market prices and capitalism. Garen Markarian and Charles Richard Baker provide alternative narratives, which both support and challenge these central themes. My position, as editor, has been one of constructive neutrality. The study by Cardao-Pito and Ferreira is rich in detail and evidence. At a basic level, it encourages us to re-visit our understandings of the origins of fair value accounting. The commentaries by Markarian and Baker motivate us to take these arguments with a blend of scepticism and enthusiasm, with Markarian offering more of the latter and Baker suggesting a healthy dose of the former. The three narratives offer three individual accounts yet not the entire account. It may be possible for us to accept some of what all the authors provide as evidence without accepting necessarily all of what they contend. As consumers of historical works, Evans reminds us as of the need to take conclusions as tentative: