Municipal accounting reform in Portugal by Costa Cabral and its impact in the 19th Century (1842-1900)

Abstract

This study aims to understand the importance and scope of the municipal accounting reform developed from 1842 to 1849 by Costa Cabral, Portuguese Minister of the Kingdom (1842-1846, 1849-1851) and Prime Minister (1849-1851), analysing its content, effective application, the impact it had on Portuguese municipal accounting and how it contributed to a greater link between the local government and the central government. To this end, we present a brief analysis of the economic, social and political context of the 1840s and the transformations then operated at the administrative and fiscal level with an impact on municipal accounting; the literature review regarding municipal accounting, especially from the 19th century; the historical sources used and the methodology adopted; the nature of Costa Cabral's 1849 Instructions on municipal accounting, its application and importance, seeking to detect changes and the factors behind them. We conclude that the Portuguese State, by defining the regulation for itself and for the organizations that depended on it, intervened, innovated and disseminated the accounting transformations carried out with the 1849 Instructions, seeking to integrate municipalities into the national accounting system as a whole, in a clear exercise of power, in a political context of legal imposition and lack of revenues, but also within a cultural and technical context of modernization, rationality and efficiency of municipal services. Submitting municipalities to common procedures and practices, as well as to the same obligations, is a remarkable achievement.