Japanese experience of corporate accounting control c.1939–c.1945

Abstract

After 1937 the Japanese government shifted its policy from economic rationalization to economic control in preparation for a full-scale war. The enlightened age of the Working Rules of 1934, the first accounting principles in Japan, was quite short, and from 1940 to 1945 Japan experienced an age of accounting control. The economic control of this period, however, did not completely restrict the profitmaking ability of Japanese companies or negate the free-market principles upon which the Japanese economy was based. The system of accounting control in Japan was not a direct state control system but rather an unique ‘two-stage co-ordination system’ between the government, industrial control associations (Toseikai) for each industry and individual companies. The most significant development during the 1930s and 1940s was the emergence of the Ministry of Finance as the leading administrative organ, not only of fund control but also of corporate accounting control.