Vale, Paul J. Miranti, Jr.

Abstract

The world of accounting and business history suffered a large and sad loss when Paul J. Miranti, Jr. died on January 13, 2022, from complications related to contracting Covid 19 on Christmas Eve, 2021. Paul, a professor of accounting at the Rutgers School of Business in New Jersey, was 78 years old. Paul’s younger brother, Dr Richard Miranti, died on the same day in the same New Jersey hospital, also because of the global pandemic. Paul is survived by his youngest brother, Robert, and his former wife, Adrienne, whom he knew from childhood. Paul received the bulk of his academic training at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. As an undergraduate and later as a graduate student, he studied under renowned business scholar Alfred D. Chandler, receiving a BA in history in 1965 and then graduating with his MA in 1968. He ultimately pursued his doctorate under the direction of Louis Galambos at Johns Hopkins, receiving his degree in 1985, when he was awarded the Herman Kroos Memorial Prize for his dissertation. In between his times at Hopkins, Paul attended New York University, where he received his MBA in 1974 (awarded the Kolodny Prize for his master’s thesis) and an Advanced Professional Certificate in International Finance in 1979. During these years, Paul worked at various firms as an auditor and analyst; he obtained his CPA credentials in 1976 while employed by Arthur Young & Co. in New York City. In 1981, Paul began to explore an academic career in earnest by serving as a part-time instructor at Rutgers Business School, part of the state university of New Jersey. Indeed, he never left Rutgers. Paul served as an adjunct lecturer at the Business School while pursuing his doctorate. After achieving his terminal degree, he joined the faculty as an assistant professor. He was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and then to full professor in 1999. For the next 3 years, Paul served as the Business School’s Associate Dean for Faculty and Research; he returned to the classroom in 2002, and he was scheduled to teach in Spring 2022. Paul felt it imperative for individuals to develop their natural scholarly abilities to their fullest. This belief found expression in his tireless work as a researcher. Over his long and distinguished career, Paul published 20 book chapters or encyclopedia articles and roughly 50 papers in refereed journals including Accounting History; Accounting, Organizations and Society; Business History Review; and Enterprise & Society. He was author or coauthor of four books. One book, A History of Corporate Finance (Baskin and Miranti, 1999) was widely read and translated into Chinese, Italian and Japanese. His last book, Years of Transition, The American Accounting Association, 1991–2016 (Miranti et al., 2016) was commissioned by the American Accounting Association as part of the celebration of its centennial. At the time of his death, Paul was involved with co-authors in two more book projects as well as several papers. He was always on the lookout for his next project or two. Paul found the discipline of accounting history underdeveloped, in part because of an ideological split in researchers between those employing an economic lens and those using a sociological one to Special Issue: Accounting and Work in Historical Perspective