Prior to the US Securities Acts contractual uses of accounting ("stewardship") were considered the prime reasons for the calculation of accounting earnings. For example, Leake (1912, pp. 1-2) lists management's requirement to ascertain and distribute earnings according to the differential rights of the various classes of capital and profit sharing schemes as the leading two reasons for calculating earnings (other reasons given by Leake are income taxes and public utility regulation). Given contractual use was the prime reason for the calculation of earnings and earnings were used for contracting for many centuries, the theory of finn approach would begin the.
