IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/euract/v12y2003i4p605-633.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The economic value of the R&D intangible asset

Author

Listed:
  • Marta Ballester
  • Manuel Garcia-Ayuso
  • Joshua Livnat

Abstract

This study utilizes firm-specific time-series data to estimate the economic value of the research and development (R&D) expenditures that investors consider an asset to the firm. The study uses a modification of the Ohlson (1995) model to estimate the persistence of abnormal earnings, the proportion of current R&D expenditures that represents a source of future benefits to the firm and the amortization rate of that asset. The parameters are estimated from time-series data of market and book values of equity, earnings and R&D expenditures. The study further compares the firm-specific estimates with those resulting from an application of a cross-sectional estimation procedure based on all available companies in the sample and industry-specific sub-samples. Results indicate the existence of significant differences in some two-digit SIC code industries between the time-series and the cross-sectional estimates of the parameters and the economic value of the R&D asset. Differences in the capitalization parameter are associated with the growth in R&D, the profitability of the firm, R&D intensity and the concentration of the industry. Differences in the persistence of earnings are related to the concentration ratio. Finally, differences in the estimated economic value of the R&D asset are associated with the profitability of the company as measured by its return on assets. We further compare the associations between the three different estimates of the R&D asset and subsequent stock returns, as well as the contemporaneous difference between the market and book value of companies. Results indicate that the time-series estimates of the R&D asset show stronger associations with both variables, followed by the intra-industry and the cross-industry cross-sectional estimates. Overall, our results provide evidence that market participants behave as if R&D expenditures have significant future economic benefits to the firm, and show that the cross-sectional and time-series approaches followed when assessing its economic value provide significantly different estimates.

Suggested Citation

  • Marta Ballester & Manuel Garcia-Ayuso & Joshua Livnat, 2003. "The economic value of the R&D intangible asset," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 605-633.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:euract:v:12:y:2003:i:4:p:605-633
    DOI: 10.1080/09638180310001628437
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09638180310001628437
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09638180310001628437?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Denise A. Jones, 2018. "Using real options theory to explain patterns in the valuation of research and development expenditures," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 51(3), pages 575-593, October.
    2. Nani, Albi, 2023. "Valuing big data: An analysis of current regulations and proposal of frameworks," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    3. Hengjie Ai & Dana Kiku & Rui Li & Jincheng Tong, 2021. "A Unified Model of Firm Dynamics with Limited Commitment and Assortative Matching," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(1), pages 317-356, February.
    4. Filipe Sardo & Z¨¦lia Serrasqueiro, 2017. "Intellectual Capital and Firms¡¯ Financial Performance: A European Empirical Study????," Business and Economic Research, Macrothink Institute, vol. 7(2), pages 1-18, December.
    5. Karpa Waldemar & Nowakowski Jakub, 2018. "Estimating R&D Returns In Health Care Industry," Journal of Management and Business Administration. Central Europe, Sciendo, vol. 26(2), pages 34-46, June.
    6. F. Tsoligkas & I. Tsalavoutas, 2011. "Value relevance of R&D in the UK after IFRS mandatory implementation," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(13), pages 957-967.
    7. Elbannan, Mohamed A., 2013. "Do analysts follow emerging economy firms with higher intangible assets? Empirical evidence from Egypt," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 50-59.
    8. Sydler, Renato & Haefliger, Stefan & Pruksa, Robert, 2014. "Measuring intellectual capital with financial figures: Can we predict firm profitability?," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 244-259.
    9. Gaétan de Rassenfosse & Adam B. Jaffe, 2017. "Econometric Evidence on the R&D Depreciation Rate," NBER Working Papers 23072, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Bernstein, Jeffrey I. & Mamuneas, Theofanis P., 2006. "R&D depreciation, stocks, user costs and productivity growth for US R&D intensive industries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 70-98, January.
    11. Efstathios G. Parcharidis & Nikos C. Varsakelis, 2010. "R&D and Tobin's q in an emerging financial market: the case of the Athens Stock Exchange," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(5), pages 353-361.
    12. Felix J. Lopez-Iturriaga & Emilio Lopez-Millan, 2015. "Institutional Framework, Corporate Ownership Structure, and R&D Investment: An International Analysis," HSE Working papers WP BRP 36/MAN/2015, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    13. Chinloy, Peter & Jiang, Cheng & John, Kose, 2020. "Investment, depreciation and obsolescence of R&D," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 49(C).
    14. Alston, Julian M. & Pardey, Philip G. & Ruttan, Vernon W., 2008. "Research Lags Revisited: Concepts and Evidence from U.S. Agriculture," Staff Papers 50091, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    15. Salma Loulou & Mohamed Triki, 2008. "Déterminants et pertinence de l'activation des dépenses de recherche & développement dans le contexte des entreprises françaises," Post-Print halshs-00525992, HAL.
    16. Nam, Hyun-Jung & An, Yohan, 2017. "Patent, R&D and internationalization for Korean healthcare industry," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 131-137.
    17. Jie Liu & Arnulf Grubler & Tieju Ma & Dieter F. Kogler, 2021. "Identifying the technological knowledge depreciation rate using patent citation data: a case study of the solar photovoltaic industry," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(1), pages 93-115, January.
    18. de Rassenfosse, Gaétan & Jaffe, Adam B., 2018. "Econometric evidence on the depreciation of innovations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 625-642.
    19. Minjung Kang & Sangil Kim & Moon-Kyung Cho, 2019. "The Effect of R&D and the Control–Ownership Wedge on Firm Value: Evidence from Korean Chaebol Firms," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-20, May.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:euract:v:12:y:2003:i:4:p:605-633. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/REAR20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.