Accounting for research and development (R&D) costs is an open issue. SFAS N°2 mandates that all R&D costs are immediately expensed. International standards prescribe a capitalization of R&D costs if they meet certain criteria (IAS 38). Recent research papers (Healy et al., 2002; Lev and...

Significant difference exists between the market value and book value of firms. It could be attributed to the fact that intangible assets are not reflected in the financial statements. Our resuls indicate a statistical association between the "capitalized goodwill" and the market-to-book ratio,...