Associationalism, Statism, and Professional Regulation: Public Accountants and the Reform of the Financial Markets, 1896-1940

Abstract

In this article Projessor Miranti contrasts the differing reactions of leaders in the public accounting profession to the structure of national economic regulation that emerged in America during the first decades of the twentieth century. Specifically, he focuses on the actions taken by two national professional organizations, the American Association of Public Accountants and its successor, the American Institute of Accountants, at two important junctures in the history of financial reform: the establishment of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Trade Commission and the organization of the Securities and Exchange Commission. In assessing these experiences, his article concentrates on identifying the changing circumstances and political contexts that gave rise first to an associationalist response and then to a statist response to the problem of ordering the nation's financial markets.