Publications in Accounting History: A Long-Run Statistical Survey

The purpose of this article is to provide a comprehensive survey of the history of publications in accounting history. The paper uses data prior to 1980 from the bibliographies by Parker (1980), together with a new searchable database (available from the author) of accounting history publications compiled from the accounting history publications listed annually in Accounting, Business and Financial History/Accounting History Review from 1989 to 2015. In contrast to previous surveys, the data cover the period from the start of the profession down to the present day and include all the leading journals and historians. The results measure and chart the explosion in output of accounting history in the 1980s and 1990s, which reached a peak in 2000, and the worrying leveling-off of subsequent publications. The decline of interest in early accounting and bookkeeping and the rise of issues driven by the so-called New Accounting History is traced and, in terms of output and personnel, the relative decline of the early leadership of the American historians and the rise of the British and Australians is identified.