ABSTRACT

It is indeed an oddity that the conceptual frameworks of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) make no mention of fair value as a measurement basis, yet in the extant literature of both boards fair value is used extensively. Yes, the conceptual frameworks were published some time ago, but not that long ago. In barely 15 years or so we have witnessed a meteoric rise in the use of fair value as a measurement basis in financial reporting. Will this trend continue or will fair value, like one of its current value cousins, current (or replacement) cost, gradually fade from view and be relegated to the textbooks as an interesting but ultimately unsuccessful experiment?