ABSTRACT
The development of uniform costing practices was the backbone of the National Industrial Recovery Act's (NIRA) attack on the free market structure. The essential elements of the NIRA with respect to capacity reporting were its reliance on full cost recovery costing methods and its promotion of “cost plus a fair profit” approaches to setting market prices. The reach of the NIRA legislation, however, went beyond the physical legislation. While the formal legislative structure of the NIRA was dismantled, it was not the only way that the Act and its intentions were enforced. The NIRA alone seems unlikely to have been a large enough force totally to overturn the search for “true” cost that defined the Golden Era of capacity reporting. The NIRA may have provided the initial thrust toward the full cost recovery model in accounting, but it was not the only event of import in this turbulent time.
