Intangible assets: Importance on the knowledge-based economy

The paper is devoted to the question of how important Intangible Assets (IA) are in today's knowledge-based economy. The latest surveys show that the value of companies is now mostly generated by Intangible Assets, and not by 'traditional' assets having the tangible form. The main research objective is to define the impact of fundamental value of both tangible and intangible assets on the market value of assets of Russian companies. As a general approach used herein for IA evaluation, the method of calculated intangible value offered by T. Stewart was chosen. Developed econometric models are tested on the data of Russian stock market from 2001 to 2005 year. In the focus of the research there is both the analysis of the sampled companies (43 companies) as a whole as well as divided into five aggregated fields: mechanical engineering, extractive industry, engineering, communication services, and metallurgy. Some suggestions for managing IA in Russian companies are presented in the paper. In conclusion, the main directions for further research in this field are outlined.