Results from the research project The Estimation of Investment in Intangible Assets and Its Spillover Effects

This paper aims at developing more elaborate indicators to measure the value of intangible assets using financial market valuation data of firms. Namely, it is reasonable to expect that investing in intangible assets could ultimately be reflected in the market value of the firm. Based on the approach introduced by Griliches (1981, 1988) and Hall (1992, 1993a, 1993b and 1998, 2001), we develop a model that estimates relative contributions of proxies for different intangible assets (R&D expenditures, patents stock, advertising expenditures etc.) to a measure of Tobin’s Q. We try to apply a macro-correction of the stock-exchange indices for factors that cause irrationality in their movements. Obtained coefficients from the econometric panel-data estimation applied on firms quoted at the stock-exchange serve as relative weights for different forms of intangible investments in non-quoted firms