The importance of intangibles in the modern economy: accounting, strategic relevance, valuation

5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In the last decades the concept of intangibles has received increasing considerations from different fields of economics. In general, what has been observed is that intangibles are more and more important in today’s knowledge-intensive, information-based economy. Some macroeconomic researches have visualized the shift of developed economies from tangible to intangible investments (such as Lev, 2018), providing empirical evidence of the event: in 2016 the tangible investments in the US private sector have amounted $1.49 trillion, while intangible investments have reached $2.16 trillion. The interesting fact is that, moving from macroeconomic data, the understanding of intangibles is still generating debates and conflicting theories. The elusive, polyhedral nature of intangibles, in fact, causes problems in giving a clear and distinctive definition, which, in turn, has consequences on other important aspects such as intangibles accounting, management and valuation. In particular, these problems reflect on the understanding of a specific category – internally generated intangibles – which, conversely, is considered by a growing body of academics and managers the most valuable and important for firms. The aim of this master thesis is to investigate the gap between the empirically-verified importance of intangibles in the modern economy and the limited understanding of their main aspects, starting from their definition, to their management and valuation, focusing on internally-generated intangibles. The analysis conducted in the thesis covers three main topics: accounting treatment, strategic management theories and firm-valuation implications. Starting from a review of the existing definitions and taxonomies of intangibles, the thesis moves to the most pragmatic approach: the accounting treatment of intangibles. It discusses the accounting standards on intangibles provided by the IASB (International Accounting