On the Profitability of Innovative Assets

Dirk Czarnitzki (1) , Kornelius Kraft (2)

1 Steunpunt O&O Statistieken
2 Dept. of Economics

Successful innovative activity is a major contribution to the intangible capital of firms. Although its importance is generally acknowledged, the contribution to companies' profits is a priori unclear. We present the results of an empirical study on the effects of the patent stock on profitability. The database is a representative sample of German manufacturing firms and we use a number of control variables includ-ing measures of competition and firm governance. It turns out that the patent stock has a strong and robust effect on profitability.

Mots clés: Social Sciences & Humanities

Dirk Czarnitzki, Kornelius Kraft. On the Profitability of Innovative Assets. Applied Economics, 2010, 42 (15), pp.1941-1953. ⟨10.1080/00036840701749019⟩. ⟨hal-00600121⟩