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The 2015 International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) Conceptual Framework Exposure Draft (2015 IASB CF ED) proposes a mixed valuation and transactions approach to income determination. Nevertheless, it does not clearly choose between single or dual concepts of profit, which renders the 2015 IASB CF ED’s financial accounting model somewhat incoherent. The 2015 IASB CF ED proposes a rebuttable presumption that profit or loss should be all-inclusive. Only the IASB can rebut this presumption, but the 2015 IASB CF ED provides no clear conceptual basis on which to rebut this presumption. In spite of considering dual measurement, the IASB believes that it is neither possible, nor necessary, to distinguish between profit or loss and other comprehensive income (OCI) on a conceptual basis. This paper suggests that the 2015 IASB CF ED’s approach to measurement can be improved by introducing a deprival value measurement rule in cases where fair value and historical cost are not appropriate. Furthermore, it argues that under dual measurement it is both necessary and possible to make a conceptual distinction between the realised items of income and expense in profit or loss and those recognised by accretion in OCI.

In this article, we revisit the history of accounting for goodwill in the United Kingdom, the United States, France, and Japan following the conclusions and predictions of Ding, Richard and Stolowy (2008). We aim at verifying whether the four phases of development of the accounting for goodwill between 1880 and 2005 are actually determined by the global change from a stakeholder model of corporate governance to a shareholder model. An extended time frame of analysis (until 2016) is considered in this study, which includes Japan among the country-specific accounting systems investigated. Our findings do not support Ding et al.’s predictions for Japan and demonstrate a disagreement between those countries which consider goodwill as a depleting asset and those which consider goodwill as a permanent asset. This observation might explain better the current debate concerning international harmonization on goodwill.

SYNOPSIS This paper illustrates that, despite their general agreement on the decision-usefulness objective of general purpose financial reporting, the Accounting Standard Board of Japan (ASBJ) and the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB)'s conceptual frameworks are based on two different concepts of financial performance. By identifying and contrasting the two financial performance concepts and their impact on the rest of the frameworks and by explaining the thinking that underpins the ASBJ's chosen financial performance concept, it contributes to a debate about the role of financial performance concepts in fulfilling the decision-usefulness objective. Such a debate is pertinent to the revision of the IASB's Conceptual Framework, which is scheduled for completion in 2015.

This paper analyses accounting accruals that may relate to earnings quality and its information content. The characteristics specifying earning quality are discussed according to research surveys of earnings quality. These are compared with the characteristics of accounting income specified by the concept of ‘released from risks’ in ASBJ (2006). In this context, the conversion process of subjective goodwill, which is related to the allocation problem in accounting income and its relation to earnings quality, is focussed upon. The allocation problem is examined by clarifying the conversion process of subjective goodwill, and by highlighting the portion of the allocation error that reflects managerial discretion.

The authors describe an empirical study of fair value accounting, applying to data on Japanese banks the analytical methods of Barth, Landsman, and Wahlen. They also discuss a further study of regulatory risk in capital requirements associated with fair value accounting, focusing on banks with low Basle capital adequacy ratios. This is a different approach from that of Barth, Landsman, and Wahlen. In the United States, these authors calculated capital ratios on a fair value accounting basis with unrealized securities profits. Using these figures, they tested how fair-value-based violations help predict actual regulatory capital violations and to what extent investors recognize this potential increased regulatory risk. This paper investigates, using actual Basle adequacy ratios, the regulatory risk in capital requirements associated with fair value accounting.