【正文】 4 For summaries of the pros and cons of FVA and further references, see Barth (2020), Penman (2020), Benston (2020), and Ryan (2020). There is also a large literature on the value relevance of accounting numbers, which often analyzes fair values. See surveys by Barth et al. (2020) and Holthausen and Watts (2020). 6to disclosures about a firm’s financial assets? That is, even for assets that are held to maturity (., loans), investors might care about current market values, be it to evaluate past decisions in light of current market conditions or because investors have some doubts that the firm (or bank) can hold these assets to maturity. Similarly, when bank regulators set capital requirements based on expected future losses at the time of the transaction, we would expect them to adjust required capital when expectations about future losses change – and not just when losses are realized. It is surprising that some mentators seem to believe that HCA is a sound basis for capital requirements or that the liquidity of an asset should play no role when market values and liquidity play an important role in determining (ongoing) margin or collateral requirements.5 Aside from highlighting some of the shortings of HCA, these examples also illustrate that it is important to be explicit about the presumed goal(s) of accounting when we debate the merits of FVA and other alternatives, such as HCA, because their relative merits likely depend on the goal(s) of accounting. Furthermore, take the concern that observed prices may not always reflect true fundamental values and that in those cases markingtomarket is not appropriate. Clearly, it is conceivable that, at times, observed market prices deviate from fundamentals. That is, markets may not be efficient with respect to publicly available information at all times. There are transaction costs and limits to arbitrage, and market prices may be subject to behavioral biases and investor irrationality (., Shleifer, 2020。 NBER April 2020 (Forthing in Accounting, Organizations and Society) Abstract The recent financial crisis has led to a vigorous debate about the pros and cons of fairvalue accounting (FVA). This debate presents a major challenge for FVA going forward and standard setters’ push to extend FVA into other areas. 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 crisis, it is less clear that these problems apply to FVA as stipulated by the accounting standards, be it IFRS or . 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. 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. JEL classification: G14, G15, G30, K22, M41, M42 Key Words: Marktomarket, Fair value accounting, Financial institutions, Liquidity, Financial crisis, Banks, Procyclicality * We appreciate helpful ments from G252。 Veron, 2020).3 In 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 economic effects of its own. In this article, we attempt to make sense of the current fairvalue debate and discuss whether many of the arguments in this debate hold up to further scrutiny. We e to the following four conclusions. First, much of the controversy about FVA results from confusion about what 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 setters will always face these issues and tradeoffs。 it results from the use of market values in bilateral contracts. See Section 4 for a discussion of how FVA in financial crises. 7The important question, however, is how to deal with this problem. Potential market inefficiencies can be addressed in a variety of ways and again HCA is not the only alternative. Historical costs do not reflect the current fundamental value of an asset either. Therefore, it might be better to use market values, even if the markets are illiquid, and to supplement them with additional disclosures, ., about the fundamental value of the asset when held to maturity. FVA does not prevent firms from providing additional information, including management’s estimates of fundamental values.6 One might counter this argument with the concern that investors may overlook information in the notes to the financial statements or that they would overreact to fair values based on current market prices despite the disclosure of (higher) fundamental values in the notes. However, we are not aware of any empirical evidence that investors systematically ignore or overlook information in the notes. Having said that, there is a legitimate debate over whether the market fully and correctly impounds financial information in price (., Kothari, 2020). For instance, the market could overreact (., DeBondt and Thaler, 1985). But it is also possible that market reactions are even more extreme if current market prices or fair value estimates are not disclosed to the market. We are not aware of any empirical evidence that investors would be calmer under HCA. Investors are not na239。 Plantin et al., 2020a).