Acquisition and integration of fair value information on liabilities into investors' judgments
Abstract
Purpose – The International Accounting Standards Board and the Financial Accounting Standards Board allow fair value measurement of liabilities. Previous findings from the literature on recognition versus disclosure indicate that recognition of fair value information better serves investors' needs, because it is more likely to facilitate the incorporation of the information into their judgment. In cases of credit risk changes for own liabilities, however, many authors doubt that fair value measurement is beneficial due to its potential counter-intuitiveness. The purpose of this paper is to gain insight into non-professional investors' processing of fair value information for liabilities. Design/methodology/approach – A between-subjects laboratory experiment was employed. Subjects received financial information on three different companies. The authors manipulated the accounting treatment of liabilities between the three groups. Subjects ranked three companies according to their economic performance. The authors then compared these rankings to the companies' actual performance. Findings – The results of the experiment indicate that non-professional investors are less likely to acquire the information of credit risk changes when liabilities are not measured at fair value. Additionally, evidence was found that fair value measurement is to some extent counter-intuitive for non-professional investors. Research limitations/implications – A main limitation is that our experiment concentrates on liabilities and abstracts from interactions of both sides of the balance sheet. Originality/value – This is the first study to analyze in detail non-professional investors' information processing of liabilities measured at fair value.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Emerald Group Publishing in its journal Review of Accounting and Finance.
Volume (Year): 10 (2011)
Issue (Month): 4 (November)
Pages: 385-410
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.emeraldinsight.com
Order Information:
Postal: Emerald Group Publishing, Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley, BD16 1WA, UK
Email:
Web: http://www.emeraldinsight.com/raf.htm
Related research
Keywords: Creditworthiness; Decision making; Fair value; Fair value accounting; Financial information; Investors; Liabilities;References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Espahbodi, Hassan & Espahbodi, Pouran & Rezaee, Zabihollah & Tehranian, Hassan, 2002. "Stock price reaction and value relevance of recognition versus disclosure: the case of stock-based compensation," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 343-373, August.
- Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1986. "Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(4), pages S251-78, October.
- Urs Fischbacher, 2007. "z-Tree: Zurich toolbox for ready-made economic experiments," Experimental Economics, Springer, vol. 10(2), pages 171-178, June.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:rafpps:v:10:y:2011:i:4:p:385-410For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Chris Harris).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

