The analysis of the relationship between productivity, labour, capital, and innovation requires reliable measures of the inputs. Obtaining such measures can be a difficult task when the data are from accounting reports of the companies. In dealing with accounting information one has to take into account the specific principles that have determined the data and every change occurred in the reporting rules, as well as any possible discretion or error committed by the accountants. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the procedures implemented to create a connection between reporting rules, available firm-level accounting information and empirical variables in a panel of Italian manufacturing companies for the 1982-1999 period. These procedures are important for three reasons. Firstly, Italy is poorly analysed if compared to the number of papers exploring the role on innovation in France or US; see Mairesse-Sassenou (1991) for a review. Secondly, Italian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are different, in some way, from the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS, known until 2002 as International Accounting Standards, IAS) developed by the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC). Notwithstanding the definition and recognition criteria for intangible assets are similar to those of IAS/IFRS, more intangible assets than the ones predicted by IAS/IFRS are allowed for in Italy. This difference implies that following the criteria of the Anglo-Saxon literature in construction intangible stocks from accounting data could bring to the underestimation of the innovation’s role, while possibly overestimating labour and tangible capital effects. Thirdly, since 1992, the Fourth Directive approved by the European Commission was implemented in Italy through a statutory law (D.Lgs. n. 127/91). This Directive introduced a structural break that has to be tackled in order to homogenise the temporal pattern of data, especially in the intangibles case.
The Measurement of Intangible and Tangible Assets in a Panel of Italian Manufacturing Firms: from the Reporting Rules to the Empirical Variables
BONTEMPI, Maria Elena
2005
Abstract
The analysis of the relationship between productivity, labour, capital, and innovation requires reliable measures of the inputs. Obtaining such measures can be a difficult task when the data are from accounting reports of the companies. In dealing with accounting information one has to take into account the specific principles that have determined the data and every change occurred in the reporting rules, as well as any possible discretion or error committed by the accountants. The aim of this paper is to illustrate the procedures implemented to create a connection between reporting rules, available firm-level accounting information and empirical variables in a panel of Italian manufacturing companies for the 1982-1999 period. These procedures are important for three reasons. Firstly, Italy is poorly analysed if compared to the number of papers exploring the role on innovation in France or US; see Mairesse-Sassenou (1991) for a review. Secondly, Italian Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are different, in some way, from the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS, known until 2002 as International Accounting Standards, IAS) developed by the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC). Notwithstanding the definition and recognition criteria for intangible assets are similar to those of IAS/IFRS, more intangible assets than the ones predicted by IAS/IFRS are allowed for in Italy. This difference implies that following the criteria of the Anglo-Saxon literature in construction intangible stocks from accounting data could bring to the underestimation of the innovation’s role, while possibly overestimating labour and tangible capital effects. Thirdly, since 1992, the Fourth Directive approved by the European Commission was implemented in Italy through a statutory law (D.Lgs. n. 127/91). This Directive introduced a structural break that has to be tackled in order to homogenise the temporal pattern of data, especially in the intangibles case.I documenti in SFERA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
