1） Gakushuin University, 1-5-1 Mejiro Toshima-ku, Tokyo 171-8588 Japan.
E-mail: clemence. garcia@gakushuin. ac. jp

2） In other words, this assumption is derived from the question: what is an asset? To some extent, it shows the degree of conservatism in asset recognition.

3） Act of July 15, 1914.

4） Decree of January 15, 1916.

5） Act of July 31, 1917.

6） Non consolidation goodwill, “fonds commercial” in French.

7） Ministerial directive of January 31, 1928, article 29.

8） Highest administrative court.

9） International Financial Reporting Standards.

10） Conseil National de la Comptabilité, renamed in 2009 Autorité des Normes Comptables, the French standard-setting body.

11） about 2.7 billion euros.

12） According to the French PCG.

13） For the last 13% of cases, amortization period is unclear.

14） Standard issued by the international standards board, implemented in the EU from 2005.

15） Asobat: A Statement of Basic Accounting Theory.

16） This is a basic assumption of the dynamic view that could also be found also in German and American literature.

17） This view is commonly adopted in a balance sheet approach, as for example in IAS 38. It is very ancient.

18） As Yang (1927) also did.

19） Later, Ota became a leading figure of the dynamic school, but interestingly, his youth work ended up with a “static” conclusion (according to the categories of Ding et al., 2008).

20） In his first study in 1920, Takase also mentioned the obligation of writing on goodwill for tax purpose, suggesting that this stance was the same from 1917. Unfortunately, we could not find the precise origin of this jurisprudence.

21） Ota changed his stance about goodwill between 1921 and 1954.

22） Conservatism is probably one of the reasons for which Japanese accounting is often classified in the same group as German accounting, but in fact this may be misleading. Although Japanese accounting institutions have much in common with continental Europe, Kurosawaʼs post-war reforms seem to be rather based on his own interpretation of interwar American and German authors.

23） This method corresponds to the pooling-of-interests, or méthode dérogatoire in France.