A Historical View on the Political Fair Value Debate in Germany

56 Pages Posted: 14 Jul 2010 Last revised: 20 Sep 2010

See all articles by Sebastian Hoffmann

Sebastian Hoffmann

HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management

Date Written: July 11, 2010

Abstract

In May 2009 the latest state-initiated accounting reform in Germany has been finished. Although German Commercial Code is made by parliament, especially academic experts play a vital role in accounting reform processes throughout Germany. As there may be various reasons for an engagement of academics in accounting standard setting an analysis of their participation was done with re-spect to the introduction of fair value accounting for financial instruments held for trading (which at the end of the process was one of the most intensely discussed topics). It turns out that most arguments used by academics in this debate were rather negative towards fair value accounting. The paper tries to explain these attitudes based on German accounting history. German accounting history and tradition seems to provide some interesting insights that may guide German ac-counting academics in their opinion on fair value accounting.

Keywords: accounting standard setting, fair value accounting, German accounting history, accounting reform

JEL Classification: M48

Suggested Citation

Hoffmann, Sebastian, A Historical View on the Political Fair Value Debate in Germany (July 11, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1634824 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1634824

Sebastian Hoffmann (Contact Author)

HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management ( email )

Jahnallee 59
Leipzig, D-04109
Germany

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