Intangible Assets: Values, Measures, and Risks(Oxford Management Readers)

In today's ultra-competitive global economy, intangibles are increasingly taking centre stage in firms' business strategies and investors' valuations. Physical and financial assets are becoming commodities, yielding at best a competitive return on investment. In their place, intangible assets such as patents, brands, unique business processes, breakthrough scientific discoveries, and strategic alliances are what firms are using to create dominant market positions, control risk, generate abnormal profits, and achieve growth and wealth. The dramatic rise and fall of high-technology company valuations over the past five years has brought the unusual economic characteristics of intangible assets into the public arena. The concurrent advantages and vulnerabilities of intangible-intensive companies has highlighted the importance of having an in-depth understanding of the economics of intangibles and developing tools to better manage and evaluate them.This Reader provides that understanding by bringing together the best research and advocacy on intangibles. The chapters provide a comprehensive tableau of both rigorous perspectives and empirical evidence about intangible assets by scholars and policy makers in accounting, economics, finance, and information technology. As such, the Reader both informs and sets a solid foundation for the next generation of challenging questions that need to be addressed.The Reader has four sections: Section I explains why intangibles have become so important in the modern economy. Section II investigates the impact of specific kinds of intangibles on firm performance and equity market values. Section III documents the severe adverse effects of the informational deficiencies that are created by the accounting and financial reporting rules that govern intangibles. Finally, the chapters in Section IV call for improved disclosure and measurement of intangibles in financial statements, and make concrete suggestions for what such solutions should look like.

Table of Contents:
John R. M. Hand and Baruch Lev: Introduction and Overview Part I: Intangibles in the Modern Economy 1: Leonard Nakamura: A Trillion Dollars a Year in Intangible Investment and the New Economy 2: Carl Shapiro and Hal Varian: The Information Economy 3: Paul Romer: The Soft Revolution: Achieving Growth by Managing Intangibles 4: Stephen Bond and Jason Cummins: The Stock Market and Investment in the New Economy: Some Tangible Facts and Intangible Fictions Part II: The Impact of Specific Intangibles on Firm Performance and Market Value 5: Baruch Lev and Theodore Sougiannis: The Capitalization, Amortization and Value-Relevance of R&D 6: Mary E. Barth, Michael B. Clement, George Foster and Ron Kasznik: Brand Values and Capital Market Valuation 7: Lynne G. Zucker, Michael R. Darby and Marilynn B. Brewer: Intellectual Human Capital and the Birth of US Biotechnology Enterprises 8: Zhen Deng, Baruch Lev and Francis Narin: Science and Technology as Predictors of Stock Performance 9: Chandra Seethamraju: The Value Relevance of Trademarks 10: John R. M. Hand: Profits, Losses and the Non-linear Pricing of Internet Stocks 11: Randall Morck and Bernard Yeung: Why Firms Diversify: Internalization vs. Agency Behavior 12: John R. M. Hand: The Increasing Returns-to-Scale of Intangibles Part III: The Adverse Consequences of the Informational Deficiencies of Intangibles 13: Jeff Boone and K. K. Raman: Off-Balance Sheet R&D Assets and Market Liquidity 14: David Aboody and Baruch Lev: Information Asymmetry, R&D and Insider Gains 15: Louis K. C. Chan, Josef Lakonishok and Theodore Sougiannis: The Stock Market Valuation of Research and Development Expenditures 16: Joan Luft and Michael Sheilds: Why Does Fixation Persist? Experimental Evidence on the Judgment Performance Effects of Expensing Intangibles Part IV: The Need for Solutions 17: Margaret Blair and Steven Wallman: The Growing Intangibles Reporting Discrepancy 18: Wayne Upton, Jr.: Challenges from the New Economy for Business and Financial Reporting 19: Baruch Lev and Paul Zarowin: The Boundaries of Financial Reporting and How to Extend Them 20: Baruch Lev: What Then Must We Do?

About the Author :
John R. M. Hand is Professor and Chairman of the Accounting Faculty at the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC Chapel Hill. His research centres on the business economics, financial statement analysis, and equity valuation of companies, particularly those in the high-technology sector. He has published in numerous accounting and finance journals, and is a two-time winner of the American Accounting Association's competitive manuscript competition. Baruch Lev is the Philip Bardes Professor of Accounting and Finance with the Stern School of Business at New York University; Director of the Vincent C. Ross Center for Research; and a consultant to numerous corporations and investors. He is the award-winning author of several books and various research studies published in leading accounting, finance, and economic journals.

Review :
`Twenty academic papers that bring together a wide variety of perspectives and empiracal evidence on how intangible assets contribute to today's economy.' Long Range Planning