During the second half of the nineteenth century, five Great Exhibitions took place in Paris. The French state was highly involved in their financing and management which led to the implementation of public finance rules. Because of specific managerial constraints, public accounting systems and...

The objective of the present paper is to study the accounting treatment of goodwill and practices concerning this intangible asset before the application of new international accounting standards. The empirical study is based on the analysis of 33 annual reports of French top companies listed on...