Fair Value Considerations during the Current Financial Crisis

In the current economic conditions, accounting applications seem to face new and complex challenges. Especially, these challenges are on the basis of fair value. Recent crisis has highlighted the complexity and difficulty of valuing financial instruments when market information is not available or not sufficient to give better economic decisions. FASB 157 “Fair Value Accounting” became effective by January 1, 2008 for most U.S. companies and some believe that this caused the problem. Oppositely, a wider group of interested parties and investors believe that fair value increases transparency and give relevant information for decision making. Depending on the financial reporting framework and the going concern assumption, this paper investigates the process for determining fair value measurements and its in-depth effects in financial reports. Also, the paper will try to highlight the question: “Can fair value be really the main reason of the global financial crisis?” from the aspect of an accounting academician.