ABSTRACT
The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) replaced the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC) in 2001. During its short career, the IASB has already had significant achievements in regulating financial reporting, notably in persuading more than a hundred countries to make use of its standards. However, it has also attracted criticism and controversy, and a focus for this has been its alleged support for fair value as the basis of measurement in financial reports. In this chapter, we explore four aspects of fair value in the IASB’s standards programme: first, the definition of fair value; second, the case for using fair value as the measurement basis; third, the degree of support for fair value in the IASB’s standards and other pronouncements, and the way this has changed over the first twelve years of the IASB’s existence; and fourth, the forces that have influenced the IASB’s attitude to fair value, including the effects of the financial crisis. We conclude with some observations on the implications of the IASB’s recent experience for future developments in International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
