1、 PDF外文:http:/ 中文4640字 毕 业 设 计(论 文) 外 文 参 考 资 料 及 译 文 译文题目: 公允价值会计的危机 : 正确理解最近的辩论 &nbs
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4、sp; 2013 年 3 月 10 日 The Crisis of Fair Value Accounting: Making Sense of the Recent Debate* Christian Laux Goethe-University Frankfurt and Christian Leuz The University of Chicago Booth School of Business & NBER April 20
5、09 (Forthcoming in Accounting, Organizations and Society) Abstract The recent financial crisis has led to a vigorous debate about the pros and cons of fair-value accounting (FVA). This debate presents a major challenge for FVA going forward and standard setters push to extend FVA into other ar
6、eas. In this article, we highlight four important issues as an attempt to make sense of the debate. First, much of the controversy results from confusion about what is new and different about FVA. Second, while there are legitimate concerns about marking to market (or pure FVA) in times of financial
7、 crisis, it is less clear that these problems apply to FVA as stipulated by the accounting standards, be it IFRS or U.S. GAAP. Third, historical cost accounting (HCA) is unlikely to be the remedy. There are a number of concerns about HCA as well and these problems could be larger than those with FVA
8、. Fourth, although it is difficult to fault the FVA standards per se, implementation issues are a potential concern, especially with respect to litigation. Finally, we identify several avenues for future research. Key Words: Mark-to-market; Fair value accounting; Financial institu
9、tions;Liquidity; Financial crisis; Banks; Procyclicality 1. Introduction The recent financial crisis has turned the spotlight on fair-value accounting (FVA) and led to a major policy debate involving among others the U.S. Congress, the European Commission as well banking and
10、accounting regulators around the world. Critics argue that FVA, often also called mark-to-market accounting (MTM),1has significantly contributed to the financial crisis and exacerbated its severity for financial institutions in the U.S. and around the world.2On the other extreme, proponents of FVA a
11、rgue that it merely played the role of the proverbial messenger that is now being shot (e.g., Turner, 2008; Veron, 2008).3In our view, there are problems with both positions. FVA is neither responsible for the crisis nor is it merely a measurement system that reports asset values without having econ
12、omic effects of its own. In this article, we attempt to make sense of the current fair-value debate and discuss whether many of the arguments in this debate hold up to further scrutiny. We come to the following four conclusions. First, much of the controversy about FVA results from confusion about w
13、hat is new and different about FVA as well as different views about the purpose of FVA. In our view, the debate about FVA takes us back to several old accounting issues, like the tradeoff between relevance and reliability, which have been debated for decades. Except in rare circumstances, standard s
14、etters will always face these issues and tradeoffs; FVA is just another example. This insight is helpful to better understand some of the arguments brought forward in the debate. Second, there are legitimate concerns about marking asset values to market prices in times of financial crisis once
15、 we recognize that there are ties to contracts and regulation or that managers and investors may care about market reactions over the short term. However, it is not obvious that these problems are best addressed with changes to the accounting system. These problems could also (and perhaps more appro
16、priately) be addressed by adjusting contracts and regulation. Moreover, the concern about the downward spiral is most pronounced for FVA in its pure form but it does not apply in the same way to FVA as stipulated by U.S. GAAP or IFRS. Both standards allow for deviations from market prices under cert
17、ain circumstances (e.g., prices from fire sales). Thus, it is not clear that the standards themselves are the source of the problem. However, as our third conclusion highlights, there could be implementation problems in practice. It is important to recognize that accounting rules interact with