The value of Ohlson (1995) and Feltham and Ohlson (1995) can best be appreciated when one recognizes where the studies fit on the evolu tionary tree of research. These studies return to issues so basic as to ren der them direct descendants of work done no later than the 1960s (e.g., Edwards and Bell 1961;
Modigliani and Miller 1958; Miller and Modigliani 1961; and Preinreich 1938). Ohlson (1995) and Feltham and Ohlson (1995) represent the base of a branch that capital markets research might have followed, but did not. Instead, framed within the so-called informational perspective, research since the late 1960s developed with out
much emphasis on the precise structure of the relation between accounting data and firm value. In a sense, Ohlson (1995) and Feltham and Ohlson (1995) return to "step one" and attempt to build a more solid foundation for further work. A fair evaluation of this work must consider that it is only a first step, not yet intended to represent a fully developed framework. Nevertheless, even in its embryonic state, the path laid down in Ohlson (1995) and Feltham and Ohlson (1995) offers some important and immediate contributions.