Rein Abel, a former professor of accounting in the Wharton School, died on December 23, 2022, due to complications of Parkinson’s disease. He was 96.

Dr. Abel was born in Tartu, Estonia, in 1926. His youth was disrupted by Soviet and German invasions of Estonia during World War II. In 1944, as a high school student at the French Lycée in Tallinn, Estonia, Dr. Abel joined the Fliegergruppe Estland, an Estonian air force squadron, to avoid conscription into the German army. Evacuated to Germany in September 1944 in advance of the Soviet occupation, Dr. Abel saw his homeland only after Estonia regained independence in 1991. He never saw active duty, but was captured twice by Soviet troops as the German front dissolved. His second escape ended with a night swim across the Elbe River into the American zone. He spent several years in displaced persons camps in Germany, lastly in Meerbeck, before emigrating to England.

In England, Dr. Abel worked in an iron foundry and earned a BSc in economics from London University (1952), followed by a certificate in business administration (1956) from the London School of Economics. At Columbia University, he then earned an MBA (1960) and a PhD (1967). From 1954 to 1972, Dr. Abel held various accounting positions, including at Arthur Young & Co., in Buffalo, New York. From 1966 to 1972 he taught at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1972 he accepted a position as an assistant director of the Cost Accounting Standards Board (CASB) in Washington, DC. The CASB promoted cost accounting standards governing the pricing of government contracts, including defense contracts. In 1980, the CASB was dissolved, and Dr. Abel took a position at the Government Accountability Office (GAO), as director of cost and regulatory accounting, joining the Senior Executive Service in 1984. He spent 1982 to 1984 in Vienna, Austria, on a temporary assignment as head of the accounting and finance section of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Dr. Abel rejoined the CASB in 1991 when it was reinstated, as director of research, and remained there until his retirement in 2005.

Dr. Abel is survived by his wife, Marju Rink-Abel; and their son, Olav. He will be buried next to his parents in Tartu, Estonia, later this year.