A pair of recent surveys suggests surprising support for fairvalue accounting standards, at least if such standards are used inaddition to the current methodology that relies on amortized cost.The results of the two surveys, one conducted byPricewaterhouseCoopers and one by Grant Thornton, could bolster thedrive by the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) to requirefair value reporting for all financial instruments.

The Grant Thornton survey of CFOS and senior controllers atnearly 500 large public companies found that 63%, or almost two outof three, favor using fair value to account for assets on thebalance sheet. Of that group, roughly 60% favor providing both fairvalue and amortized cost, while 40% say they'd go with fair valueonly. Just 37% of the finance executives say they favor usingsolely an amortized cost accounting methodology for the balancesheet.

Income statements were a different story, with only 5% ofresponding finance executives saying they favored the use of fairvalue.