Wealth and growth in today's economies are driven primarily by intangible assets. Physical and financial assets are rapidly becoming commodities, yielding at best a competitive return on investment. Abnormal profits, dominant market position and even temporary monopolies are most effectively achieved by the sound deployment of intangible assets. The aim of this book is to bring together the best research and thinking in this exciting and rapidly emerging area.

• 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 RandD


• 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 RandD Assets and Market Liquidity


• 14: David Aboody and Baruch Lev: Information Asymmetry, RandD 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?

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.