Unreliable accounts: How regulators fabricate conceptual narratives to diffuse criticism – A response to Karthik Ramanna

Abstract Karthik Ramanna’s article titled “unreliable accounts: How regulators fabricate conceptual narratives to diffuse criticism” provides a critical insight into how Fair Value Accounting (FVA) was incorporated into the conceptual framework for general purpose financial reporting. Karthik reveals that the installation of FVA into the FASBs constitution can be understood through a framework: conceptual veiling. In this framework, the FASB is captured within the logics of financial market economics, assuming investors and capital market actors are best served by financial disclosures that reflect market valuations. Captured by these interests, the FASB needed to modify the narratives contained in the conceptual framework removing reliability and substituting faithful representation because much of what constitutes FVA disclosures are estimates and judgements of questionable reliability. A more forceful critical evaluation of the re-orientation of accounting practise from Historical Cost Accounting to FVA might have located changes in the context of the financialized company.