外文翻译原文

Intangibles: Management, Measurement, and Reporting R&D and the Growth of Business Enterprises

The contribution of R&D to the performance measure (profits ,sales) statistically to R&D expenditures –in the current and previous periods to allow for the delayed effect of R&D on business performance –and by controlling for the effect of other investments (physical assets ) on business performance. This statistical approach to empirically address issues concerning intangibles and their private and social impact was frequently used by economists and researchers in related areas. The empirical worked started with extensive historical case studies and proceeded to large sample (cross-sectional) analyses of R&D on firms’ productivity and growth .The research effort yielded several important findings:

---R&D expenditures contribute significantly to the productivity(value added) and output of firms ,and the estimated rates of return on R&D investment are quite high —as much as—20-35 percent annually –with the estimates varying widely across industries and over time.

--- The contribution of basic research (work aimed at developing new science and technology) to corporate productivity and growth is substantially larger than the contribution of other types of R&D ,such as product development and process R&D(where the latter is aimed at enhancing the efficiency of production processes).The estimated contribution differential of approximately three to one in favor of basic research is particularly intriguing ,given the widespread belief that public companies have been recently curtailing expenditures on basic research, in part as a response to the skepticism of many financial analysts and institutional investors about the commercialization prospects of basic research. Basic research is, of course, more risky than applied R&D (see chapter 2), but it is inconceivable that risk differentials by themselves account for a three-to-one productivity of basic research.

---The contribution of corporate-financed R&D to productivity growth is larger than corporate-based –but government-financed —R&D (granted primarily to government contractors).The fact that most contracts with the government are based

on cost-plus terms may partially explain this findings. This result should not detract from the significant contribution to the industrial and technological infrastructure of publicly funded research conducted by government agencies and in federal laboratories (such as the contribution by the National Institutes of Health to pharmaceutical and biotech companies) as well as the substantial contribution of university research to technology.

It should be noted that much of the research summarized above was based on survey data and industry aggregates, due to severe limitations in corporate published data. In fact, most of the examined variables and attributes—such as basic versus applied research and company versus government-sponsored R&D—cannot be directly estimated from information publicly disclosed to investors. Thus an important implication of these and similar findings is to suggest which kinds of currently unavailable information and data would be useful to managers, investors, and policymakers.

Alternative Output Measures: Market Value and Patent

The research presented above relates R&D inputs (intensity, capital) to firms’ productivity, sales, or profit growth, in an attempt to estimate the return on corporate investment in innovation as well as to examine macro-economic issues, such as the productivity decline in the United States in the 1970s and early 1980s. This methodological approach encounters various problems; in particular the time lag between the investment in R&D and the realization of benefits (such as sales) is often long (particularly for basic research) and generally unknown, increasing the uncertainty about the estimated R&D contribution. Furthermore, biases and distortions in reported profits—arising from firms’ attempts to ―manage‖ investors’ perceptions (see chapter 4)—might cloud the intrinsic relationship between R&D and its subsequent benefits.

These measurement difficulties have prompted a search for alternative and more reliable indicators of R&D output than reported sales and profitability measures. Two output indicators have received considerable in attention: capital market values of corporations and patents. Believers in efficient capital markets argue that stock price

and returns provide reliable signals of enterprise value and performance; hence R&D contribution can be evaluated using market values. Patents, and particularly citations in patent applications, provide an additional of the value of R&D and firms’ technology.

Concerning capital market studies, the research persuasively indicates that investors regard R&D as a significant value-increasing activity. For example, a number of event studies register a significantly positive investor reaction (stock price increases) to corporate announcements of new R&D initiatives, particularly of firms operating in high-technology sectors and using cutting edge technology. When information is available, investors distinguish among different stages of the R&D process—such as program initiation and ultimate commercialization —most significantly rewarding mature R&D projects that are close to commercialization. Furthermore, econometric studies that relate corporate market values or market-to-book ratios to R&D intensities consistently yield positive and statistically significant association estimates. Further probing of the data suggests that investors value an R&D dollar spent by large firms more highly than that spent by small firms, probably a reflection of economies of scale in R&D. For example, large companies may benefit from lessons of failed R&D projects as they pursue the development of other project.

The evidence thus indicates unequivocally that investors view R&D expenditures as on average enhancing the value of firms and that that also demonstrate some ability to differentiate the contribution of R&D across industries, firm sizes, and stages of R&D maturity. Investors’ ability to fine-tune R&D valuations is obviously hampered by the absence of detailed information on these attributes in corporate financial reports.

Data on R&D expenditures available in financial statements are crude indicators of R&D contribution and value creation: there is productive R&D and wasteful R&D (Motorola and partners’$5 billion investment in the Iridium satellite communications project, currently in bankruptcy, is an example of the latter). The R&D productivity estimates discussed above obviously averaged the good and the bad, missing

considerable information in the process. In an attempt to improve the estimation of R&D contribution, researchers experimented with patents, which can be considered an intermediate output measure of R&D (the final output measure is, of course, the benefit—sales, cost savings—generated by the R&D expenditure). Patents are only partial indicators of R&D output, since not every R&D project id patented. Yet patent research provides interesting insights.

The Findings of Patent Research

Various attributes of patents, such as the number of patents registered by a company (patent counts), patent renewal and fee data, and citations of and to patents were examined by researchers. Both patent counts and the number of innovations emerging from a company’s R&D program were found to be associated with the level of corporate investment in R&D (the higher the R&D expenditures, the larger, on average, the number of consequent patents and innovations) as well as with firms’market values (the larger the number of patents and innovations, the higher the market value, on average). Patents are thus related to both inputs (R&D) and outputs (market values) of the innovation process and, therefore, are meaningful intermediate value measures.

It is clear, however, that patent and innovations are noisy measures of R&D contribution, due to the skewness of their value distributions—that is, the tendency of a few patents or innovations to generate substantial returns (blockbusters), while the majority turn out to be virtually worthless. Citations (references) to a firm’s patents included in subsequent patent applications (forward citations) offer a more reliable measure of R&D value, since such citations are an objective indicator of the firm’s research capabilities and the impact of its innovation activities on the subsequent development of science and technology.

Various studies show that patent citations capture important aspects of R&D value. For example, Manuel Trajtenberg reports a positive association between citation counts and consumer welfare measures for CAT scanners; Hilary Shane finds that patent counts weighted by citations (the firm’s number of registered patents divided by the number of citations by others to these patents) contribute to the

explanation of differences in Tobin’s q measures (market value over replacement cost of assets) across semiconductor companies; and Bronwyn Hall and colleagues report that citation-weighted patent counts are positively associated with firms’market values (after controlling for R&D capital). Patents and their attributes thus reflect technological elements used by investors to value companies.

In a direct test of the usefulness of patent citation measures as indicators of value, studies have been conducted to examine the ability of various citation-based measures to predict subsequent stock returns and market-to-book values possess such predictive ability: the number of patents granted to the firm in a given year, the intensity of citations to a firm’s patent portfolio by subsequent patents, and a measure based on the number of citation in a firm’s patents (backward citations) to scientific papers (in contrast with citations to previous patents).

The third measure reflects the scientific intensity of a patent and may provide a proxy for the extent of basic research conducted by the company. The fact that patent indicators are associated with subsequent stock prices and returns suggests that investors are not fully aware of the ability of these measures to convey useful information about firms’ innovation processes and capabilities. This is of course not surprising, given the novelty of patent-related measures as indicators of enterprise value.

Patents are the intangible assets actively traded in markets (see chapter 2), in the form of licensing and sale of patents. An examination of firms’royalties from the licensing of patents indicates that the volume of royalty income is swiftly increasing and that investors value a dollar of patent royalties (the implicit, market multiplier of royalty income) two to three times higher than a dollar of regular income. The reason for the high valuation of patent royalties probably lies in the stability of this income source (patents are usually licensed for several years) relative to other more transitory components of income. Patent royalties also impact investors’valuation of R&D, namely the market value they assign to a dollar of R&D expenditures. The valuation of the R&D of firms with royalty income is higher than the valuation of the R&D of firms that do not license patents, probably due to investors’ belief that the quality and

prospects of the R&D of firms able to license patents is relatively high.

Summer

R&D, a major form of corporate intangible investment, is found to be an important contributor to firms’productivity, growth, and capital market value. The magnitude of this contribution—return on R&D investment —varies across industries and over time but is, by and large, considerably higher than firms’cost of capital; hence the value creation capability of R&D. The research record, therefore, strongly supports the assertions made in chapter 2 concerning the scalability of intangibles due to their nonrivalry and increasing returns properties as well as the existence of positive network effects (externalities) of many intangibles.

In addition to the general findings about the positive contribution of R&D to corporate value and growth, the empirical record indicates the following: ---The return on basic (fundamental) research is substantially higher than that of applied or process R&D.

---Despite the expensing of R&D outlays in financial reports, investors consider R&D an important asset.

---Even for internet companies, where the uncertainty regarding future benefits is currently considerable, investors value much of the R&D(product development) as an investment (asset) rather than an expense .

---Patents and their attributes (for example, citations) constitute useful intermediate output measures of R&D value.

---In recent years, Internal R&D has been complemented by acquired R&D and technology under development, where the latter often surpasses the former in volume of expenditure.

---Royalties from patent licensing are a potent (in terms of creating market value) source of corporate income.

Organizational Capital

The extensive research focusing on R&D provides important insights about the organization of R&D activities (such as economies of scale), the private and social returns on R&D, the appropriation of R&D benefits (such as the effectiveness of

patent protection), and investor’s valuation of innovation activities. R&D, however, is but one component of firms’ intangible capital (knowledge assets), which is of course particularly pronounced in the technology-and science-based sectors. Other components of intangibles—human and organizational capital—have received substantially less research attention than R&D. Consequently, our knowledge concerning important intangibles is rudimentary at best.

Resource：Baruch Lev. Intangibles: Management, Measurement and Reporting [M]. The Brookings Institution,2001.55-62.

译文：

无形资产——管理、计量和呈报

研究和开发企业的成长

企业研究开发的贡献是通过将工作指标（利润、销售收入）系统地与研究开发支出（在当期和以前各期中允许在经营业绩上的递延效应）相联系可以得出的，同时控制其他投资形式对经营的业绩，这种统计方法被相关领域的经济学家和研究者广泛地应用，证实了关于无形资产和它们的私人和社会关系。研究工作开始于广泛的历史案例研究分析，具代表性的大量样本分析产生了研究开发对生产率和增长率的数据，这些研究取得了一些重要发现：

——研究开发支出对于生产率（价值增长）和产出数据具有重大贡献，而且估计的研究开发投资回报率非常高，相当于每年20%-35%，但在不同行业和不同时期估计值的变化较大。

——基础研究（主要是在开发新科学和新技术）对于公司生产率和增长率的贡献,本质上大于其他形式的研究开发，比如说，产品开发和加工研究开发（后者目的在于提高产品加工效率）。基础研究相对与应用研究的贡献的差异比是3：1，这个差额非常具有吸引力。使得大众普遍认为上市公司最近已经削减了对基础研究的支出，部分原因在于许多财务分析师和机构投资者对商业化的基础研究的怀疑。基础研究当然比应用研究开发（见第二章）更具风险，但风险差异并不足以解释基础研究3：1的生产率优势。

——公司融资的研究开发对于生产率增长的贡献要高于公司为基础的政府融资的研究开发（政府许可）。事实上，大多数与政府签订的合同都是基于成本加成条款，也许可以部分解释这些发现。这结果不能减损政府部门在联邦实验室进行的公共研究对于工业和技术的基础设施的重大贡献，以及大学研究对于技术的巨大贡献。

需要指出的是鉴于公司公布的数据具有严重的局限性，以上概述的很多研究总结以调查数据和工业联合体为基础。事实上，大多数检验变量和特征（如基础与应用研究、公司发起与政府发起研究开发）不能直接由向投资者公布的信息中获得。因此这些发现和类似发现的一个重要启示就是那些现在未公布的信息是对经理人员、投资者和政策制定者有用的信息。

产出计量指标的选择：市场价值和专利

上述研究将研究与开发投入（强度、资本）与公司生产率、销售收入和利润增长相联系，试图估计公司在创新上的投资回报和检验宏观经济问题，比如20世纪70年代和80年代早期美国生产率的下降。这些方法遇到许多问题；特别是研究开发的投入和收益（比如销售收入）的实现过程中存在的时滞，时间长且不被知道，增加了估计研究开发贡献的不确定性。而且有偏见和歪曲的利润报告——产生于企业操纵利润的企图——可能会模糊研发与其带来的收益的关系。

这些计量上的难点促使人们去寻找可替代的和较销售收入、盈利水平更可信的研究开发产出指标。研究人员开始关注两个产出指标：公司的资本市场价值和专利。有效市场的信奉者认为股票价值和回报为企业和业绩提供了可靠的指标，所以研究开发贡献可以用市场价值评价。专利（特别是专利的引用）为研究开发和公司技术提供了另一个价值指标。

资本市场的研究普遍说明了投资者认为研究开发是一项重要的价值增值活动。例如，许多事件研究表明投资者对于公司（尤其是高新技术和边缘技术公司）宣布研究开发活动的启动作出了积极反应（股价上涨）。如果投资者可以获得相关的信息，他们就会区分研究开发过程中的不同阶段（例如方案的启动阶段还是最终的商业化阶段），并且给予接近商业化的成熟的研究开发最高的报酬。同时，计量经济学研究将公司的市场价值同研究开发强度、市场价值与账面价值比同研究开发强度相联系，得出了正向的具有统计意义的相关估计值。进一步探索这些

数据，我们发现投资者对于大公司的每一美元的研究开发投资的估价要高于小公司，这可能反映了研究开发的规模经济。例如，当大公司进行其他项目研究时，可能会吸取以往研发失败的教训并从中获益。

有明显的证据表明，投资者认为研究开发将提高公司的价值，并且投资者表现出了区分不同行业、公司规模和成熟阶段的研究开发贡献一定的能力。然而，财务报表中没有披露有关这些特征的信息，从而阻碍了投资者调整研究开发评价的能力。

从财务报表中得到的研究开发数据是研究开发贡献和价值创造的粗糙的指标：其中既有高效率的研究开发也有无效的研究开发（摩托罗拉公司及其合作者投资50亿美元用于铱卫星通讯工程，这项工程现已破产，该事件就是后者的例证）。研究开发生产率的估计将成功的和失败的研究开发平均计量，丢失了该过程中的大量信息。为了优化研究开发贡献的估价，研究人员尝试运用专利，认为专利是研究开发的中间产出估价（当然最终的研究开发产出估价是研究开发投资带来的收益，如销售收入和成本的节约）。专利只是部分的研究开发产出指标，因为并非所有的研究开发项目都获得专利。然而，专利研究提供了一个引人注意的视角。

专利研究的发现

研究人员检验了各种研究开发的特征，如一个公司注册专利的数目（专利计数），专利更新和费用数据，以及专利的引用与被引用。专利数和公司研究开发方案中出现的创新数目被发现与公司的研究开发投资（一般而言，公司的研究开发开支越大，专利和创新的数目越多，市场价值越大）相关。这样专利就既与创新过程中的投入（研究开发）相关也于产出（市场价值）相关，所以是一个有意义的中介价值计量指标。

然而，专利和创新显然是研究开发贡献的夸大计量，因为它们是价值偏态分布——即少部分创新能够产生巨大的回报（一鸣惊人），而绝大部分创新实际上一文不值。公司专利研究的应用，包括了以后的专利应用（专利的进一步引用），为研究开发价值提供了更为可靠的计量指标，因为专利的引用客观地体现了公司研究能力和研究开发活动对以后科技发展的影响。

各种研究表明专利引用抓住了研究开发价值的一个重要方面。例如，曼纽

尔·特雷杰坦恩伯格指出专利引用数和消费者对于计算机X射线轴向分层造影扫描机的效用评价之间存在正相关关系；希拉里·沙恩发现用引用率（他人引用专利数与公司注册专利数之比）衡量的专利计数可以解释不同半导体公司之间托宾q值（市场价值高于资产重置成本）的差异；布朗恩·霍尔和他的同事报告：以引用率计量的公司专利数与公司市场价值正相关（在控制了研究开发资金之后）。这样专利及特点反映了投资者评价公司价值的技术要件。

一项直接测试价值指标有用性的研究检验了引用估计指标预测上市公司股票收益和市净率的能力。研究发现有三个方法具有预测能力：在某一年度授予某一公司的专利数量、接下来的专利对公司专利组合引用的广度、科学杂志（与以前的专利引用不同）引用公司专利数（追溯引用）。

第三个方法反映了一项专利的科学强度，可以代表公司进行基础研究的程度。专利指标与股票价格和回报相关的事实说明投资者并非完全没有意识到这些指标具有提供有关公司创新过程的有用信息的能力。这样就难怪将与专利相关的计量方法作为企业价值的指标。

专利的买卖方式有许可证交易会和专利出卖两种，它是市场中交易最活跃的无形资产（见第2章）。有关公司专利执照的特许权使用费的一项研究表明特许权使用费收入正在迅速提高，并且投资者对于每一美元的特许权使用费（特许权使用费收入的隐性市场增值器）的估价要比常规的收入高出两到三倍。高估特许权使用费价值的原因在于这些收入相对于其他短期收入要素的较为稳定（专利通常要授权一定的年度）。专利的特许权使用费的研究开发公司的价值评估要高于没有特许权使用费的公司，这可能是由于投资者认为能够授予专利的公司研究开发的质量较高和前景较光明。

小结

研究开发作为企业一项主要的无形资产投资，对企业生产率、成长率和资本市场价值具有重大的贡献。虽然不同产业化不同时期的贡献——研究开发投资回报不同，但是总体来说其贡献要远远高于企业的资本成本，所以研究开发具有价值创造能力。研究报告强烈地支持了第 2 章中提出的以下论断：研究开发的非独占性导致了研究开发可计量性，研究开发回报递增，以及许多无形资产具有正网状效应（外部性）。

除了关于研究开发对公司价值和成长性积极贡献的普遍的发现外，实证研究还表明以下几点：

——基础研究远远高于应用性或加工性研究开发的投资回报。

——尽管研究开发支出在财务报表中费用化，投资者仍认为研究开发是一项重要的资产。

——即使是未来收益具有极大不确定性的网络公司，投资者将研究开发（产品开发）视为投资（资产）而不是支出。

——专利及其特征（如引用）构成了研究开发价值的中介产出计量。

——近几年，外购的研究开发和技术补充了内部研究开发，其中前者的支出要高于后者。

——专利的特许权使用费是公司（按照创造的市场价值）收入的一个潜在来源。

组织资本

以研究开发为中心的深入研究提供了重要的见解，关于：研究开发活动结构（如规模经济）、研究开发的私人和社会回报、研究开发收益的分配（如专利保护的效用）、投资者对研究开发活动的评价。然而，研究开发只是公司无形资产（知识资产）的一个组成部分，而在科技部门无形资产的作用是显而易见的。无形资产的其他部分（人力资源与组织资本）受到的关注程度要少于研究开发。因此，我们对这些重要的无形资产的有关知识至多只是基本的。

资料来源：巴鲁.列弗/（美）.无形资产:管理、计量和呈报[M].布鲁金斯学会，2001:55-62.