Fair value accounting versus historical cost accounting: a theoretical framework for judgment in financial crisis

Since the 2008 global economical and financial crisis, the fair value measurement has acquired a controversial position both within the accounting regulatory committees and the accounting theory. The literature generally examines two opposite central paradigms of evaluation, namely the Fair Value Accounting (FVA) and the Historical Cost Accounting (HCA). The paper, after a literature review through both these opposite sides, suggests a theoretical framework, using the basic concept of “accounting system”, for the choice between the opposite paradigms, considered noteworthy in times of crisis as it should allow to conceptualize a ‘mixed system’, combining FVA and HCA in different ways according to the different contexts and entities reported by the financial statements.