Development of intangible assets : Challenging the current accounting practices : A Quantatative Research

Abstract

In this thesis, we investigate how the usage and development of intangible assets depreciate the relevance of accounting. Previous research suggests that the accounts historically have been a precise tool for predicting the stock price and, hence, the company's market valuation. In the past decades, both the explanatory capability and, subsequently, the accuracy of accounting have dropped with significance. We apply four quantitative experiments on a sample of Norwegian firms, both non-listed and listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange, between 2005-2018 to measure explanatory rates, prediction errors, valuation of stated intangible assets, and the amount of inherent goodwill. Initial test results indicated a partial depreciation of the robustness of accounting figures. Removal of the petroleum industry in the conducted experiments strengthens the assurance of the initial result. Additionally, other experiments indicate that the market positively values the reported intangible assets. Further investigations also show an increasing trend in the amount of inherent goodwill.