Fair Value Debate

摘要

What the current financial crisis has confirmed regarding fair value, is that the most dangerous situation is created when the entire valuation process is based on the entity that transactions the securities, without existing any independent confirmation of the created values, from an auditor or from an entity responsible for risk management. We refer here to the 3rd level input data that is allowed only as a final alternative, in the impossibility of applying the previous two. In addition, in this case, accounting standards solicit the disclosure of information that would fully permit the investor to give a certain trust degree to the valuation process, taking the best decision in the given circumstances. In a valuator's opinion, one of the positive effects of the current financial crisis is that of bringing some light upon those debates that concerned the concept of fair value, from two key aspects' point of view, urging us to give up a certain accounting utopia that kind of took over the current environment, and get back to financial realities. Within this paper there is provided an analysis based on the questionnaire research on the perceptions of professional valuers on fair value measurement. Results documents pros and cons of this controversial measurement base.