The concept of depreciation is also credited to the railroad era, when railroad owners allocated the cost of their trains over time, but Rosenthal notes that slave owners were doing this before then.

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In a statement, the council said it was not possible to calculate the exact amount it spent on bottled water because it was not allocated a specific cost code in its records.

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The rule also established reforms for cost allocation, most notably that costs allocated to a transmission facility must be roughly commensurate with estimated benefits.

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