PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
In this revised edition of ““ Valuation, Depreciation and the
Rate-Base,” several new chapters have been added and the
tables at the end of the volume have been extended both in
number and in the degree of accuracy to which values are therein
given. One of the new chapters, appearing as Chapter XIV,
deals with “ The Standard of Value;” another, Chapter XV, is
devoted to some elements which deserve special consideration
when rates of public utilities are to be fixed — such as obso-
lescence, losses from fortuitous events, hazard, compensation for
management, the relation of intangible elements of value to the
volume of business and the like. In the introduction to Table 33
(old Table 27) attention is called to the error in the formulas as
ordinarily used for the determination of present value and of ac-
crued depreciation — this error resulting from the non-conformity
of the actual life of individual articles of any group with the aver-
age life thereof. In a new paragraph on page 31 the use of the
term ““ Natural Rate-Base ” is suggested. The general accept-
ance by valuation experts of the term ‘ Rate-Base ”’ has been
noted with much satisfaction.
C. E. GRUNSKY.
San Francisco, CAL.,
May, 1926.