ABSTRACT
Willard’s interest in depreciation dated back to his study of the Liquid Carbonic Company, the subject of his master’s thesis, and to his interest in public utilities, the subject of his doctoral dissertation. Although he was an expert in many areas of accounting, he probably was best known for his knowledge of depreciation accounting. His understandings of economics, present value concepts, and net service values all contributed to his embracing declining-amount methods of depreciation as the best approach to allocating cost among accounting periods.
