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Paper Summaries/The Evidence That Decision Accounting Works: A Falsifiable Answer to the Investigative Objection
Paper #1025
The Evidence That Decision Accounting Works: A Falsifiable Answer to the Investigative Objection
The paper answers the investigative objection to Decision Accounting by presenting six documented cases: four where the absence of a Decision-Accounting record enabled catastrophic governance failures (Wells Fargo, Purdue Pharma, Volkswagen, UK Post Office Horizon), and two where its presence prevented harm or caught bad decisions (Singapore MAS, UK SM&CR). It formalizes a falsification condition and shifts the burden of proof to skeptics.
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Theorem status: evidence-traced claim under the cited paper's assumptionsFalsification: show the same game preserving system welfare without changing the payoff structure
KEY FINDINGS
THEOREM
Proposition 1: There exist documented cases where a Decision-Accounting record prevented harm or caught a bad decision. Proposition 2: There exist documented cases where the absence of such a record was a necessary condition for catastrophic failure. Proposition 3: The pattern reflects a general property of governance under uncertainty. Falsification Condition: If any organization with a fully implemented DA system suffers a comparable failure, the framework is falsified.
PLAIN ENGLISH
Decision Accounting works: there is real-world evidence that recording decisions prevents disasters, and the absence of such records enabled major scandals. If someone finds a case where a fully implemented system failed to prevent a similar disaster, the theory would be disproven.
EVIDENCE & LIMITATIONS
- Theorem status: evidence-traced claim under the cited paper's assumptions
- Falsification: show the same game preserving system welfare without changing the payoff structure
REFERENCES / CITATION STATUS
References section
Detected
Bibliography entries
16
In-text citations
0
Unique citations
12
Footnote markers
101
Citation year span
2015-2024
Source hash
52750e7622d5
This page reports reference counts measured directly from the manuscript. Full reference entries render only when a curated source chapter carries a public References, Bibliography, Source Notes, Supplemental Reference Archive, Footnotes, or Source-Grounding Ledger section. The site does not synthesize citation entries. Literature-claim verification status: not evaluated.
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Decision Accounting framework has been theoretically developed, but a key objection from investigative journalists remains: where is the evidence it works? The paper gives that evidence. It presents four cases where the absence of a Decision-Accounting record was a necessary condition for catastrophic governance failures: Wells Fargo's cross-selling scandal, Purdue Pharma's opioid crisis, Volkswagen's emissions fraud, and the UK Post Office Horizon scandal. It then presents two cases where the presence of such records prevented harm or caught bad decisions: Singapore's Monetary Authority enforcement actions and the UK Senior Managers and Certification Regime. The paper formalizes a falsification condition: if any organization with a fully implemented Decision-Accounting system suffers a comparable failure, the framework is falsified. The burden of proof now shifts to the skeptic to produce a counterexample.
METHODOLOGY
The paper uses a comparative case study method, selecting four cases where the absence of Decision-Accounting records enabled failures and two cases where their presence prevented harm. It formalizes a falsification condition and argues that the burden of proof shifts to skeptics.
SOURCE QUESTIONS
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WHY THIS MATTERS
For the economist
A structural claim about when bilateral optimization degrades the shared system. Read the formal statement and its stated axioms.
For the regulator
The constraint is physical or biological, so disclosure alone will not internalize it. The policy lever is to bound exposure, not to price it away.
For the executive
This is where a privately efficient decision can degrade the system the business depends on. The governance question is which decision records would make that system cost visible before it is normalized.
For the teacher
An on-site HTML deck and the expanded curriculum cover the argument, the evidence, and the measurement. Use the deck as a self-contained class session, then route deeper through the 45-50h core course or 100+h full curriculum.
For the affected community
In plain terms: who gains from the current arrangement, who pays for it, and what rule change would alter that split. The summary states each without jargon.
© 2026 Erik Postnieks · Independent Researcher · Salt Lake City