ABSTRACT
International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRSs) 1 require or permit various assets, liabilities and equity instruments to be measured at fair value. There is no single IFRS in which the principles of when to measure at fair values are set out. Rather, principles have been adopted in selective standards on an ad hocbasis (for a detailed analysis seechapter 2). Even in the IASB’s Framework for the Preparation and Presentation of Financial Statements (the IASB’s ‘conceptual framework’, often called the IASB Framework),principles for measuring assets and liabilities (whether at fair value or on any other measurement basis) are set out in just three paragraphs that are descriptive rather than prescriptive:
A number of different measurement bases are employed to different degrees and in varying combinations in financial statements. They include….
