Int. J. Critical Accounting, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2010 191 Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. The evolution of fair value accounting in the USA: a critical examination of its progress since 1900 Hossein Nouri* Department of Accounting and Information Systems, The College of New Jersey, P.O. Box 7718, Ewing, 08628-0718, NJ, USA Fax: (609)637-5129 E-mail: hnouri@tcnj.edu *Corresponding author Daniel Pannone Department of Accounting and Information Systems, The College of New Jersey, P.O. Box 7718, Ewing, 08628-0718, NJ, USA E-mail: djpannone@gmail.com Abstract: Despite the relevance of fair value accounting to the financial statements, it was not adopted by standard setting bodies until recently. This paper investigates the evolution of fair value accounting in the USA and shows that several factors, such as accounting standard setting bodies, government, business and investor-related issues contributed to the lack of adoption of fair value accounting between the 1930s and 1990s. The paper further discusses changes in the standard setting environment as well as other criteria, such as technological advancements, that have contributed to the recent adoption of fair value accounting. Keywords: evolution; fair value accounting; standard setting bodies; USA; adoption; history. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Nouri, H. and Pannone, D. (2010) ‘The evolution of fair value accounting in the USA: a critical examination of its progress since 1900’, Int. J. Critical Accounting, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp.191–209. Biographical notes: Hossein Nouri is a Professor of Accounting at The College of New Jersey. He received his PhD in Accounting from Temple University. He was the Chair of the Accounting Department at The College of New Jersey between 2004 and 2008. With research interests in behavioural accounting and meta-analysis, he has published in major accounting and management journals, including the Journal of Management, Accounting, Organizations and Society, Behavioral Research in Accounting, Journal of Accounting Literature, among others. His work has also been presented and published in numerous regional, national and international conferences. Daniel Pannone is a 2009 Graduate of The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) with a BS in Accountancy. This paper is a joint research as part of an independent study during his undergraduate study at TCNJ.