The Valuation of Public Service Corporation Property: Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers,; vol. LXXII, June, 1911, ASCE 1190Riggs, Henry Earle
General
The Valuation of Public Service Corporation Property: Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers,; vol. LXXII, June, 1911, ASCE 1190
It is submitted that the clear meaning of the foregoing is that both
replacement cost and real value as derived from use must be separately
and independently ascertained, and that, these aggregates having been
compared, the former is to be corrected by whatever allowance for
non-physical value may be required to make it agree precisely with the
latter. The obvious suggestion flowing from this discovery of his theory
is that only value in use is wanted, as that is the only real value, and
as it must be separately ascertained in any event, no other and _pseudo_
value need be taken. The essential character of the method is as
described, even when it is applied through determination of the annual
value of the use and the assignment of one portion of such annual value
to return on the capital value of the physical property and another
portion to return on the capital value of non-physical property. The
real nature of the method is not even effectually concealed by the
capitalization of the income assigned to physical property at one rate
and the income assigned to non-physical property at a different and
higher rate. In fact, if it is necessary to conclude that a portion of
the net annual income of railway property is normally paid to, or in
respect of, a portion of capital entitled to a lower rate of return, and
the remainder to or in respect of a remainder of capital entitled to a
higher rate, the appraisal of the physical property is an excessively
costly, cumbersome, and inaccurate expedient for determining the amount
or value of either portion of the capital. Yet that is exactly what was
done in Michigan by Professor Adams, the "valuation" he then made being
completed before he altered his view by deciding that the non-physical
elements of value are entitled to no consideration whatever, and that
only cost of replacement is worthy of inclusion in an official
"valuation."
But is there any real distinction between the "physical properties" and
the "immaterial elements," such as the foregoing extract seems to
assume? Is not the superficial appearance of such a distinction
plausible but deceptive? A locomotive is an entity; so is a railway. The
separate parts of a locomotive are most of them independently valuable;
so are the separate parts of a railway; but a large share of the value
of the locomotive is the result of the nice adjustment of these separate
parts to each other and to the work to be done.
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