Abstract (EN)

This article questions the role of the fair value approach in the worsening of the present financial crisis by testing its impact on the performance on the Stock Exchange of the CAC 40 companies for which the application of the IAS 39 standard is compulsory. To that end, the authors propose using Ohlson's residual earnings model (1995), the main advantage of which resides in taking into account the current earnings, projected earnings and exceptional future earnings in determining the company's quote on the Stock Exchange and enlarging it to also include the effects of the past Stock Exchange performance. The authors' empirical results show that the fair value principle should not contribute to the instability of the Stock Exchange but is certainly a factor worsening the financial crisis because of its procyclical impact on quoted companies' balance sheets.