Zeff has documented the role of the SEC in requiring the use of historical cost. The SEC’s position emerged from an investigation of the public utility holding companies that disclosed that flagrant assent write-up policies had been uses by these holding companies during the 1920s. The SEC’s advocacy of historical cost lasted into the mid-1970s, when the United States was experiencing high inflation. In 1976 the SEC altered its position on historical cost by requiring the supplemental disclosure of replacement cost information by about 1,000 of the largest non financial companies. Currently, the SEC and the FASB both recognize that financial statement disclosers must attempt to more clearly reflect economic reality and that historical costs frequently do not reflect economic reality.