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The purpose of this paper is to examine China’s stop-start adoption of fair value accounting (FVA) into its national accounting standards. The paper analyzes how FVA standards promoted by transnational organizations were eventually adopted in China despite its conservative accounting traditions.

The study uses archival records and an analytic framework adapted from the studies of social movements to identify the institutional factors that differ between China’ first unsuccessful attempt to adopt FVA and its second successful attempt.

Shared interests of elite national and international groups, creation of social infrastructure, marshaling of key resources, and specific actions to frame FVA standards are found to be crucial factors supporting FVA reform in China.

The study helps advance our understanding of dissemination of international accounting regulations in non-Western societies. The findings can help accounting standard setters to avoid costly failures.

The study provides a structured analysis of the propagation of global accounting regulations. It exposes the factors in the failure and success of FVA adoption in China.

This paper seeks to assess the feasibility and desirability of a major emerging economy adopting and implementing fair value accounting (FVA), as codified in the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), by studying China's recent experience.

The paper examines the extent of FVA adoption in China's new accounting standards (“2007GAAP”), reasons for differences from the International Accounting Standard Board's IFRS, and how 2007GAAP has been implemented in practice. Data are obtained from content analyses of IFRS and 2007GAAP FVA requirements, critical assessments of standard setters' official statements, and analyses of empirical evidence from official reports, media, and academic research.

The authors find a high degree of adoption of IFRS FVA standards in China's 2007GAAP for financial instruments, but many differences for non‐financial long‐term asset investments. Standard setters justify this divergence by fundamental characteristics of the Chinese environment. The resulting differences from IFRS in the 2007GAAP FVA standards, and in their implementation, challenge official claims of “substantial convergence” between 2007GAAP and IFRS. Hence, the benefits desired by Chinese regulators from adopting FVA and international accounting convergence to IFRS may not be realized.

The findings are derived from aggregated data in government reports. These findings can be extended in future research by examining specific implementation outcomes in company financial statements.

The paper contributes a timely critical examination of a major emerging economy's convergence with the controversial FVA requirements, which supports the IFRS's standing as a high quality set of accounting standards. The findings provide new insights into factors that can impede international accounting convergence in emerging economies.

This study aims to explore the suitability and challenges of implementing fair value accounting (FVA) in Vietnam, an emerging/transitioning economy. While such implementation would enable convergence with International Financial Reporting Standards, standard setters and auditors have raised practical concerns about its adoption.

This qualitative study uses semi-structured interviews with regulators and auditors, together with an analysis of two fraud cases that illustrate the business environment in Vietnam. Public, private and capture theories guide the analysis.

The business and institutional environment in Vietnam creates several impediments to FVA being effectively implemented and transparently applied. Given the major challenges identified regarding the infrastructure necessary for this valuation system, the premature adoption of FVA may become a catalyst for corporate misconduct.

The findings are derived from data aggregated from two fraud cases and interviews, and as such, the results may not be generalisable to other settings. However, these findings may inform future research, particularly after the Ministry of Finance provides further guidance on the use of FVA in Vietnam.

A timely and critical examination of the challenges of implementing FVA in a transitioning economy is provided, and the two fraud cases reveal the complexities of the business environment in Vietnam.

This research gives voice to the tensions that developing countries are confronting as they seek to balance external pressures with internal constraints. The introduction of an assemblage of three theoretical lenses enables insights into contemporary issues associated with applying FVA in such settings.

While the debate about fair value accounting (FVA) and the global financial crisis (GFC) of 2008-2009 has been explored in the academic and professional literature, there has been little debate about the consequences of FVA being implicated in the crash of Enron around 2001, and the effect of this on later FVA developments and the GFC. The purpose of this paper is to examine how well regulators, political actors, and other commentators may have understood the use, misuse, effects and consequences of FVA at the time of Enron, and to examine how this collective understanding (or lack thereof) has influenced later accounting policy, especially that going into and arising from the GFC.

Using content analysis, the commentary about FVA is traced through documents, primarily the US Congressional Hearings’ examination of the collapse of Enron that took place between December 2001 and December 2002. An assessment of the knowledge of and attitudes toward FVA is made from these and is then traced through later developments including policy responses before, during and after the GFC.

Links are found between the collapse of Enron and adjustments to FVA in the mid-2000s, which in turn became implicated in the GFC. These linkages are explored in the context of a fair value world view held by global standards setters in the mid-2000s. During the timeline from the 1990s to the mid-2000s, those advocating and adopting FVA as part of this world view, may have had collectively an insufficient understanding of the consequences or effects of FVA technology.

The study provides evidence of a direct link between Enron, the response of global standard setters, and the GFC controversy.

This study aims to examine the (overt) arguments and (covert) myths the Business Accounting Council (BAC) members have used to lobby over controversial accounting issues, such as the application of fair value accounting (FVA) and the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) in Japan.

The authors used a content analysis to examine 85 statements included in multiperiod BAC meeting minutes and 68 articles prepared by International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) representatives from Japan.

The results reveal that together with the arguments, myths were created and amplified by opponents of FVA and the Financial Services Agency to hide the latter’s strong regulatory power. They created these myths, using covert stories of the importance of manufacturing activities and tax accounting (for small- and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs]), to oppose mandatory IFRS adoption in Japan and, thus, to maintain vested rights in preparing the Japanese generally accepted accounting principles and Japanese accounting standards for SMEs.

First, this study contributes to the lobbying literature by focusing on the coalition (network) effect of influential stakeholder groups. Second, although lobbying activities have been investigated mostly using comment letters, this study reviews multiperiod BAC meeting minutes and articles prepared by IASB representatives from Japan. Third, the study examines both overt arguments and covert myths, both of which are important in unmasking the fundamental structures of power within influential organizations, such as government agencies and standard-setters.

This report aims to investigate the approaches taken by financial institution to implement and compute the funding valuation adjustment (FVA). FVA can be defined as the incremental cost attributable to trades with non-collateralised counterparties. This cost emerges related to the need to fund the collateral calls associated with collateralised hedge trades. In this respect, one common challenge faced by banks relates to designing appropriate methodological approaches to compute an FVA.

Recognising the growing importance of an FVA, this report is designed to investigate different approaches to computing FVA and pricing funding costs into the uncollateralised positions. Embarking on semi-structured interviews, the report explores the methodologies and structural solutions utilised by global banks.

This report has indicated several influential trends that shape the nascent FVA landscape, as well as innovative initiatives undertaken by the banks to effectively use this metric. Going forward, this paper has pointed to a number of current and future challenges faced by the participating banks with regard to implementing the FVA.

Before regulators make FVA punitive, unprofitable or inadequate by propagating the move to collateralised trading or introducing sanctions on banks recognising FVA in their financial statements, and thus reducing banks’ exposure to arbitrage opportunities, FVA will remain a challenging metric for the banking industry in the near future. Therefore, it is pivotal to understand any potential risks and operational difficulties arising from “sailing on the uncharted waters with FVA”. Moreover, it is necessary to understand market consensus on methodological approaches to computing FVA, as well as practices around constructing the bank’s own cost of funds curves.

The aim of this paper is to review the main results of accounting research literature examining the role of fair value accounting (FVA) within financial crisis. This research analyzes theoretical and empirical studies on the controversial topic about FVA and its alleged pro-cyclicality in the context of the financial crisis to offer solid reflections for improving the fair value research agenda.

This paper consists of a descriptive literature review. Theoretical and empirical research studies were investigated and then systematized in a framework to guide a literature-based analysis and critique of the relevant literature published about this topic.

The review reveals that there has been only a limited amount of research into the role of FVA within the financial crisis. This topic has not been researched extensively, and there is no empirical evidence that FVA caused the financial crunch and the subsequent financial crisis.

The restricted amount of literature that directly deals with FVA in the context of the financial crisis is the main limitation of this paper. The specificity of the theme narrows the coverage. However, the adopted research methodology enabled the main contributions concerning this issue to be collected, to realize a concise and comprehensive portrait of the debate surrounding FVA and the financial crisis.

This paper can be of use to both researchers and practitioners interested in investigating strengths and weaknesses of the fair value concept for accounting purposes. The paper sets out the main findings of the academic literature and identifies future avenues of theoretical and practical research which may support standard setters to draw up improved accounting regulation.

Few existing studies consist of a literature review that examines theoretical and empirical researches on the influence of FVA on the financial system. This review offers a comprehensive overview on research literature concerning the responsibility of FVA in causing the financial crisis. The main contribution of this paper relates to further understanding the role and effects of accounting matters concerning fair value in a broad sense within the context of the financial crisis.

This paper aims to explore the implementation of fair value accounting (FVA) in China as part of a global process of neoliberalisation and financialisation of political and economic systems. It establishes that FVA forms part of the technical architecture of neoliberalism.

In considering the processes of neoliberalisation in China, this paper uses a qualitative approach to explore some of the impacts the adoption of FVA has had on Chinese capital markets.

It is shown that the practice of FVA is imbued with assumptions about the state and the market that have little bearing on the realities of Chinese capital markets. Rather than advancing the public interest, as neoliberal theories claim, this accounting change has failed to transform political and economic power. Instead, it has provided another opportunity to reposition powerful political and economic elites both inside and outside China. This paper argues that the process has reconfigured capital markets in the image of those in advanced capitalist economies, but is devoid of the regulatory and socio‐political apparatus to rationalise its relevance and reliability in the Chinese context.

By positioning the research in broader literature of neoliberalism, this paper offers an alternative framing of the purpose of adopting FVA and, more broadly, the globalisation of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).

This chapter focuses on information efficiency as provided by fair value accounting (FVA) and corporate governance (CG) practices in an emerging market. Positive accounting theory was adopted as an empirical model to test the relationship between information efficiency and stock prices. Data for the period 2007–2020 from 576 listed firms on the Stock Exchange of Thailand were collected, tested, and analyzed using a fixed effect estimator. The results indicate that investors in the stock market trust the use of publicized efficient information as provided by FVA and CG practices in making their investment decisions, when FVA and CG proxies were found to significantly influence stock prices. Hence, this evidence implies that information efficiency leads to better firm values in an emerging market.

The purpose of this paper is to provide “Comments” on two previous papers in this journal about fair value in Chinese accounting. It extends those papers by considering developments since 2006.

The paper analyses the contents of Chinese Accounting Standards, dividing the references to fair value into several different categories. This analysis is compared to the findings of the two previous papers. This paper then re-assesses the evidence about the alleged pressures from international institutions on Chinese accounting.

The two previous papers greatly overstate the importance of fair value in Chinese accounting, partly through misinterpreting Chinese standards and partly because of a lack of caveat that the instructions about fair value often relate to special circumstances or unusual companies. The theorising about Chinese enthusiasm for fair value is misguided: the present author suggests that China became keen to adopt international standards despite their use of fair value not because of it, and that China removed much of the fair value when it adapted international standards. The extension of the analysis beyond 2006 provides a fuller coverage but does not alter the conclusions.

The earlier of the two papers examined has been extensively cited. Researchers need to be warned that the technical content and the conclusions of both papers are questionable. Authors should define terms clearly and should provide sufficient reference detail to enable readers to check findings.

Multinational companies, auditors and financial analysts should not be misled into thinking that Chinese accounting makes extensive use of fair value accounting.

This paper critically re-assesses two previous papers, starting with detailed technical data and moving through to the influence of international institutions. This paper also newly extends the analysis of Chinese standards beyond 2006.