This study investigates how the gap in goodwill accounting between the Japanese local accounting standards (Japanese generally accepted accounting principles) and international accounting standards (International Financial Reporting Standards) is related to the likelihood of firms adopting international accounting standards and the merger and acquisition transactions that result. The study first examines whether the adoption of international accounting standards is associated with the past merger and acquisition activities of adopters and their goodwill ratio. Second, to control for possible self-selection bias arising from the firms’ incentives for adopting international accounting standards, propensity score matching is employed to select control firms that used Japanese local accounting standards and have a similar probability of adoption of international accounting standards. Third, whether there was any difference in the number of merger and acquisition transactions is examined, as well as the goodwill ratio, between the period before and after the adoption of international accounting standards. Firms that are actively involved in merger and acquisition transactions have a higher probability of voluntary adoption of international accounting standards than those following Japanese local standards. Further, adopters of international accounting standards experience a larger increase in the number of merger and acquisition transactions than those adopting local standards. While the goodwill ratio among adopters of international accounting standards was higher than that for adopters of Japanese local accounting standards, there is no evidence that the former increase the goodwill ratio after adoption.

中文翻译：

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采用 IFRS 是否会加速并购？日本不同商誉会计的后果

本研究调查了日本当地会计准则（日本公认会计准则）和国际会计准则（国际财务报告准则）之间商誉会计的差距如何与公司采用国际会计准则的可能性以及并购交易相关结果。该研究首先考察了采用国际会计准则是否与采用者过去的并购活动及其商誉比率有关。其次，为了控制因公司采用国际会计准则的动机而可能产生的自我选择偏差，倾向得分匹配被用来选择使用日本当地会计标准并且有相似的可能性采用国际会计标准的控制公司。三是考察采用国际会计准则前后的并购交易数量和商誉比率是否存在差异。积极参与并购交易的公司比遵循日本当地标准的公司更有可能自愿采用国际会计准则。此外，采用国际会计准则的企业在并购交易数量上的增幅高于采用当地会计准则的企业。