Over time, accounting standards have moved toward presenting more items at fair value on the balance sheet. Consistent with this trend, IAS No. 36 permits an impairment loss on a long-lived asset to be reversed if the economic value of the asset recovers. This article uses empirical data from an experiment conducted with 118 managers to explore the implication of allowing impairment reversals on a manager's decision to record the loss. Results suggest that permitting reversals significantly increases the likelihood that a manager will record the impairment, especially if the manager has a bonus plan. The bonus plan effect is not caused by the manager's intention to smooth income through impairment reversals, but by his disutility from a bonus forgone if the value of the asset recovers but accounting rules prohibit him from reversing the loss.Au fil du temps, les normes comptables ont peu a peu pr econis e la pr esentation d'un plus grand nombre d' el ements a la juste valeur au bilan. Dans le même ordre d'id ee, l'IAS n˚36 permet la reprise de la perte de valeur d'un actif a long terme lorsque la valeur economique de l'actif en question se r etablit. L'auteure utilise des donn ees empiriques tir ees d'une exp erience men ee aupr es de 118 gestionnaires pour etudier l'incidence de la possibilit e de reprise des pertes de valeur sur la d ecision des gestionnaires de d epr ecier les actifs. Les r esultats obtenus semblent indiquer que cette possibilit e accroît sensiblement la probabilit e qu'un gestionnaire d epr ecie un actif, en particulier si ledit gestionnaire b en eficie d'un r egime de primes. L'effet du r egime d ecoule non pas de l'intention du gestionnaire de niveler les r esultats au moyen de reprises de pertes de valeur, mais de la d esutilit e pour lui de renoncer a la prime si la valeur de l'actif se r etablit mais que les r egles comptables lui interdisent toute reprise de la perte de valeur.Mots clés : comptabilit e, normes, perte de valeur, r eglementation Accounting standards are trending toward incorporating more current values into the balance sheet. The first items to receive current value treatment were assets that traded in active markets, because objective evidence of their values was easily * I would like to thank Catarina Bellon for her outstanding research assistance and the anonymous reviewers for providing insightful suggestions.

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