“…In contrast, this review has demonstrated that sophisticated cost calculations have been deployed in some of the focal countries since the Renaissance. In the case of Spain, for example, such early cost accounting practices existed but were not integrated into the double-entry bookkeeping system until the late nineteenth century (Ruiz Llopis, 2005). In contrast, evidence from the French setting suggests that the advent of competition after the Napoleonic Wars and the intertwining of cost and financial accounting considerably improved cost accounting practices in firms (Nikitin, 1990(Nikitin, , 1996aBoyns et al, 1997a, b).…”