Read the following quote from the FASB and IASB (2005, p. 5) and evaluate the view that ‘reliability should be the dominant characteristic of financial statement measures’.

Some FASB and IASB constituents have questioned some of the trade-offs between relevance and reliability that the Boards have made in setting particular accounting standards. For example, those constituents have questioned the appropriateness of trade-offs made in requiring financial statement measures that reflect fair values rather than historical costs. Their underlying presumption seems to be that historical costs, although arguably not as relevant as fair values, are more reliable. In those instances, those constituents assert that the trade-off between relevance and reliability should favour historical costs rather than fair values or, more generally, that reliability should be the dominant characteristic of financial statement measures.