Understanding the complexity of intangible assets

Abstract

The growing importance of strategic innovation in connection to the development of leading companies heavily investing in intangible assets makes intangible asset valuation a delicate issue for academics, practitioners, and policy makers. Yet, there is still no common and standardized method to value intangible assets. This paper presents the main developments in intangible assets valuation and provides empirical evidence on the influence of intangible assets on investor decisions and firm valuation. In particular, this paper analyses the relationship between intangible assets, market capitalization, sales and price-earnings ratio. It uses an OLS and Fixed Effects approach and finds evidence that an increase in intangible assets increases market capitalization and sales, but has no significant impact on price-per-earnings ratio. The results suggest that intangible assets valuation might affect firm’s valuation and, therefore, there is a need of a framework to assign a value for the intangible assets.