On the myth of “Anglo-Saxon” financial accounting: a comment

Alexander and Archer (AA) in this journal suggest that the existence of Anglo-Saxon accounting (ASA) is a myth. They identify four hypotheses that might be thought to underpin ASA and seek to show that they are false. This comment suggests that two of the hypotheses are not central to AA's definition of ASA, and that the other two are more complex but do contain some support for the existence of ASA. More importantly, strong support for the existence of ASA can be found elsewhere in similar conceptual approaches and accounting practices and in international cooperation. It is suggested that the identification of ASA does have explanatory and predictive power for recent and forthcoming international developments.