Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-2014

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is two-fold: One, to present the argument that entrepreneurship is an important, albeit difficult-to-measure intangible asset. Two, to discuss what we do know about measurement of other intangible assets at the macro as well as the firm level. Lack of an operational definition of entrepreneur continues to plague empirical research on the role of entrepreneur for innovation. Many proxy measures for entrepreneurs have very little to do with technological innovation. The innovative use of Q ratio as a measure of ‘entrepreneurial fever’ and the idea of imitating entrepreneur advanced by some scholars are promising. There has been significant progress in the measurement of other intangible capital such as R&D. Intangible assets far exceed the level of tangible assets in the US economy and the conventional accounting practice of expensing intangibles results in a distorted and misleading picture not only at the firm level, but also at the macro level.

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