Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative

…or so says The Economist in this article. While I generally think highly of the The Economist, this article contains one of my pet peeves, which is a loose discussion of fair value. In particular, the article states that “In 2009, under its previous chairman, Bob Herz, FASB narrowly voted 3-2 that all assets should be [...] Read more > >

Last Wednesday, I enjoyed our most recent FASRI Round Table.  Ben Couch discussed the new guidance for making Fair Value Measurements (hereafter, FVM) as well as the new disclosures about FVM.  Part of the discussion centered distinguishing between level 2 and 3 measurements.  For a FVM that uses some market information, how does the accountant [...] Read more > >

Update: Here are two slide decks related to the session described below:  First click on "Read more" below and then click here for the first slide deck. First click on "Read more" below and then click here for the second slide deck. Unfortunate technological difficulties prevented us from recording the session.   The FASRI Round Table series continues at 4pm [...] Read more > >

UPDATE:  AUDIO FOR THE SESSION IS HERE. Our next FASRI roundtable is scheduled for 4pm-5pm ET Wednesday, November 17th.  Richard Frankel (Washington University) will be joining us to talk about his recent paper, Panacea, Pandora's Box, or Placebo: Feedback in Bank Mortgage-based Security Holdings and Fair Value Accounting.  The paper continues several themes that FASRI roundtable [...] Read more > >

Isn’t disclosure always a good thing?  Isn’t it always better to have audited financial statements than not (ignoring the cost of the audit itself)? Wouldn’t it be particularly important to audit a large bank?  How about one that holds our entire financial system in its hands…such as the Federal Reserve Bank? I was very surprised to [...] Read more > >

A few weeks ago I posted a link to an interview with William Isaac where he calls some of the FASB board members “Religious Zealots.” Since then I’ve been pointed to a rebuttal article I enjoyed reading (these fair value arguments can be so much fun). To prove his point (and ours, unwittingly), he made this prodigious [...] Read more > >

Were you shocked by the title of this post? It comes from a quote by William Isaac, former FDIC chairman. The quote was posted on a recent accountingWEB article that contains the results of an exclusive interview they had with Isaac regarding the FASB proposal to require loans to be carried at fair value. I don’t [...] Read more > >

Mary Barth and Wayne Landsman recently posted a paper that discusses how the financial crisis happened and what role financial accounting had in it. I really enjoyed their discussion of fair value accounting. I think it is a very clear explanation of why people blame fair value accounting and why fair value accounting actually isn’t [...] Read more > >

Thanks to everyone who participated in yesterday’s Round Table event. Hope to see you next week. If you’d like more information on this Round Table and Eddie’s research, click here to see the post introducing the topic. Read more > >

A recent Journal of Accountancy article states that the SEC Chief Accountant Jim Kroeker would support the FASB’s cutting the number of convergence projects due for completion in 2011. Here’s one excerpt from that article: “June 30, 2011, is an arbitrary deadline and it’s not one that’s been put in place by the SEC or by [...] Read more > >