Fair value’s advantages, disadvantages and ideology have been debated thoroughly by academics and practitioners for decades. The few implementation papers which do exist are primarily concerned with developed economies. This gap is despite the prior literature acknowledging the likely difficulties of fair value use by less developed markets and economies. This paper contributes to addressing this gap by providing an analysis of the extent and use of fair value by Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) Top 40 companies for the period 2013–2017.

This paper finds limited use of fair value by JSE Top 40 companies. On average, only 184 assets and liabilities make use of fair value each year and this has not changed significantly over time. Most fair value use is by the financial services industry (41%) and for financial instruments (80%). Critically, only 28% of all financial elements made use of Level 1 inputs, and only 15% were classified overall as Level 1 inputs. The findings suggest Level 1 inputs are not widely available for financial elements and are rarely available for non-financial assets. When fair values are used for non-financial assets, this is mainly for investment property, commodity-inventories and impairment tests.

Because of the reliance on Level 2 and 3 inputs, the results suggest fair value is a costly measurement basis to implement in South Africa and frequently requires management judgement. The consequence is that many fair values are susceptible to bias and manipulation.

几十年来，学术界和从业者对公允价值的优缺点和意识形态进行了彻底的辩论。现有的少数实施文件主要与发达经济体有关。尽管先前的文献承认欠发达市场和经济体使用公允价值可能存在困难，但这一差距仍然存在。本文通过分析约翰内斯堡证券交易所 (JSE) 2013-2017 年 40 强公司的公允价值范围和使用情况，有助于解决这一差距。

本文发现 JSE 40 强公司对公允价值的使用有限。平均而言，每年只有 184 项资产和负债使用公允价值，并且随着时间的推移并没有显着变化。大多数公允价值使用来自金融服务行业（41%）和金融工具（80%）。至关重要的是，所有财务要素中只有 28% 使用了 1 级输入，总体上只有 15% 被归类为 1 级输入。调查结果表明，第一级输入并未广泛用于金融要素，也很少用于非金融资产。当公允价值用于非金融资产时，主要用于投资性房地产、商品存货和减值测试。

由于依赖第 2 级和第 3 级输入，结果表明公允价值是在南非实施的成本高昂的计量基础，并且经常需要管理层判断。结果是许多公允价值容易受到偏见和操纵。