両大戦間期日本の電力外債と外債発行電力会社の減価償却行動
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概要
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This paper examines how the accounting contract clause in foreign bonds that were issued by Japanese electric power companies between 1923 and 1931 influenced the depreciation policies of those companies. Prior research on the depreciation policy of the Toho Electric Power Company analyzed the company's non-consolidated financial statements, which did not include the company's subsidiaries. As a result, it highlighted the fact that the Toho Electric Power Company's management increased the depreciation of its fixed assets voluntarily, beginning in May, 1930. This paper, however, reinvestigates the company's depreciation policy based on an analysis of its consolidated financial statements, and finds that Toho began depreciating its fixed assets according to contract in November, 1925, at the latest, and that further depreciation was undertaken voluntarily by the management after May, 1934. In the case of Tokyo Electric Power Company, management decreased the depreciation to such an extent that it constituted a breach of contract, whereupon the underwriting company revised its accounting methods based on reports from professional accountants. Furthermore, a "depreciation problem" arose in the relationship between contractual and real depreciation funds after Japan went off the gold standard in December, 1931. These facts show that the contractual clauses concerning depreciation had a significant impact on Tokyo Electric's depreciation policy. Great Consolidated Electric Power Company, Nippon Electric Power Company, and Shin'etsu Electric Power Company, too, treated the issuing of foreign bonds as an opportunity to institute continuous depreciation of their fixed assets. As the Tokyo Electric case shows, the underwriting companies monitored Japanese electric power companies' implementation of the contracts stipulating depreciation of fixed assets. If the power company broke the rule, as in the case of the Tokyo Electric Power Company, underwriters revised their accounting approach. Their assessments were based on reports submitted to them by accounting professionals who continuously monitored the power companies' depreciation practices. I therefore conclude that corporate governance by debenture holders worked properly in the interwar period with regard to the depreciation policies of Japanese electric power companies, through the contract clauses in the depreciation policies and through the monitoring undertaken by the underwriting companies.
- 2012-07-30