Acceso usuarios
Richard Macve
At the beginning, we should note that although IASB/FASB now loosely talk of ‘the measurement objective’ this is conceptually confusing, as issues related to accounting measurement cannot be considered independently of the context of some accepted underlying objective for financial accounting and reporting, something with which the IASB and FASB are currently grappling as part of their conceptual framework (CF) revision. Major concerns with the current FASB/IASB approach to the CF include whether there is any likelihood of agreement on a single objective, given the lack of homogeneous users and uses. For example, the dilemma of ‘stewardship’ and other legally based uses (e.g., deriving from contracts and the need for ‘settling up’, which generally do require ‘one number’ to achieve closure) vs ‘economic decision making’ uses (where, as Geoff Whittington argues here, several numbers may be useful), still bedevils standard setting now as it has done for decades. And even if the relevance of a particular measure were agreed, different criteria of reliability appropriate for these different purposes might tip the balance.1
