Empirical Evidence on the Value Relevance of Brand Values across Countries

Abstract

Stock prices reflect firms-related information differently depending on the environmental and institutional context. However, previous empirical studies test mainly accounting data. Since intangible assets became a crucial element for business success and brands are considered critical for value creation, correlated disclosure is proven to be value relevant for investors. The majority of accounting standards do not allow to recognize internally generated intangible assets in the balance sheet and therefore more and more practitioners, both investors and analysts, use brand values provided by third independent parties, such as consulting firms. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether and how brand-related information differs across countries testing the value relevance of brand values published in Brand Finance’s Reports. This study aims to open a new stream of literature regarding the value relevance of non-accounting information across countries.