Fair Value Accounting,
Historical Cost Accounting,
and Systemic Risk
Policy Issues and Options for Strengthening
Valuation and Reducing Risk
112صفحه
2013
Fair value accounting (FVA) refers to the practice of updating the valuation of assets or securities
on a regular basis, ideally by reference to current prices for similar assets or securities
established in the context of a liquid market. Fair value accounting is typically distinguished
from historical cost accounting (HCA), which instead records the value of an asset as the price
at which it was originally purchased. For decades, policymakers and professional experts have
debated the relative merits of FVA and HCA and the quality of the information that each
approach provides to investors and other key users of financial statements. In the wake of the
2008 financial crisis, conflicting arguments have been made about the contributions of valuation
approaches in triggering the crisis. Critics have raised basic questions about the appropriateness
of FVA methods, even as advocates pointed out that greater transparency in asset
pricing and balance sheets ought to help protect against risk and speculative bubbles.