ABSTRACT
In 1984, we published The Debate on Inflation Accounting, which attempted to provide a comprehensive international and historical survey of the development of the theory and practice of accounting for changing prices. It is important to note that the topic is actually changing prices rather than simply inflation. The former allows for changes in the relative prices of particular assets and liabilities as well as changes in prices due to pure inflation, i.e. to the decline of the general purchasing power of money. In accounting terms, this distinction is reflected in the difference between CPP (Constant Purchasing Power), which adjusts historical cost for pure inflation, and CCA (Current Cost Accounting), which replaces historical costs by the current costs of particular assets, and is therefore concerned with specific price changes.
