The Decision Usefulness of Additional Fair Value Disclosures

Conducting an experiment Theresa Herrmann investigates why nonprofessional investors fail to incorporate disclosures on fair value estimates into their investment decision and what causes this exclusion. Differentiating between different types of disclosures and the development of the fair value (gain vs. loss) the results indicate that with a fair value gain, none of the disclosure information increases decision usefulness, irrespective of the presentation format. When a fair value loss occurs, fair value disclosures presented in a salient presentation format decrease decision usefulness. Thus, investors have varying information needs that are strongly linked to the development of a firm’s key asset.