Reporting Intangible Assets: An Empirical Study of the Developing Economies Dr. Madhurima*

The purpose of financial reporting is to provide information that is useful for decision making. Recently, however, there has been a systematic decline in the usefulness of such information. Indeed, the current reporting model seems to be no longer sufficient mainly due to the fact that it ignores many of the non-financial intangible factors which are increasingly becoming important in determining corporate value and performance. That is, there is a need for the traditional reporting model to be modified or at least broadened to reflect Intangible Assets in order to enhance the usefulness of information being provided to different stakeholders.This study examines factors associated with the voluntary disclosure practices of the top 100 developing market companies in respect of information about Intangible Assets and to find the applicability of Lev’s (Lev,2001) framework. Further, the extent of IA disclosure is associated with, industry type, and price-to-book ratio. Country-specific factors such as economic policy and legal system are also found to be significantly associated with IA voluntary disclosure levels