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Current Research Interests
My current research inerests are as follows: (1) the evolution of accounting conservatism in Japan, (2) the valuation and contracting usefulness of accounting earnings, (3) the subsequent accounting for goodwill, and (4) real effects of financial reproting on firms' investment and financial decisions.
In this website, I overview only two topics below—conditional conservatism in Japan and the debate over whether to amortize or not to amortize acquired goodwill.
Measuring Conditional Conservatism in Japanese Firms
Measuring Conditional Conservatism in Japanese Firms
One of my main research interests is the re-examination of stylized facts on conditional conservatism in Japanese firms. Conditional conservatism—one of the two forms of accounting conservatism, typically reflected in the timely recognition of losses such as asset write-downs—has been widely studied in the accounting literature.
Most studies measure conditional conservatism using the model developed by Basu (1997). However, a large body of research has pointed out several limitations of the original Basu model. My research examines whether the problems documented in prior studies—most of which use U.S. data—also arise when the Basu model is applied to Japanese firms, and whether these issues can be mitigated when measuring conditional conservatism in the Japanese context. [山下, 2023; Yamashita & Fujiyama, 2026]
Building on this work, my recent research revisits well-known findings on conditional conservatism in Japan and develops and tests hypotheses to explain newly observed time-series patterns in conditional conservatism. [Yamashita, 2026]
The Debate Over Whether to Amortize or Not Amortize (Acquired) Goodwill
The Debate Over Whether to Amortize or Not Amortize (Acquired) Goodwill
I have also conducted research on the standard-setting debate over the amortization versus non-amortization of goodwill with my co-authors. Supported by research grants from JSPS and a study group of the Japan Accounting Association (JAA), we conducted questionnaire surveys of preparers, users (mainly, financial analysts), and auditors to examine their views on the accounting treatment of goodwill.
Our research asks questions such as: Do Japanese stakeholders prefer amortization or non-amortization of goodwill? and Are their views consistent with the commonly held perceptions about users, preparers, and auditors in international debates? While not definitive, our findings provide evidence that helps address these questions.
Building on these survey results, my current work seeks to identify the distinctive features of Japanese stakeholders’ views and to accumulate further evidence on stakeholders’ perceptions of the underlying facts in the debate over goodwill amortization.
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