Remarks on the Measurement, Valuation, and Reporting of Intangible Assets

Intangible assets are both large and important. However,current financial statements provide very little informationabout these assets. Even worse, much of the information that isprovided is partial, inconsistent, and confusing, leading tosignificant costs to companies, to investors, and to society as awhole. Solving this problem will require on-balance-sheetaccounting for many of these assets as well as additionalfinancial disclosures. These gains can be achieved, but only ifusers of financial information insist upon improvements tocorporate reporting.