R&D value of Chinese manufacturing listed companies

Purpose The way to measure the value of an enterprise’s R&D investments remains elusive for theoretical and empirical study on innovation economics. The paper aims to discuss this issue. Design/methodology/approach This paper expands the asset-value model pioneered by Griliches (1981) and applies it for the first time to the Chinese stock market to calculate the value of R&D investment instilled by Chinese manufacturing listed companies (CMLCs) from 2003 to 2014. Findings The authors find that: the assets-value model can better explain the enterprise value composition of CMLCs; with equal input, the value of R&D is higher than that of tangible assets, and lower than that of organizational assets; compared with the developed countries, the R&D value of CMLCs is lower; and the R&D value of CMLCs saw a downward trend from 2007 to 2014. Originality/value Furthermore, by rationally estimating the value of organizational assets and non-tradable shares, and innovatively introducing semi-annual momentum indicators from the perspective of behavioral finance to control the influence of investor sentiment on enterprise value, this paper tries to develop the asset-value model and provides a feasible solution to the problem of measuring the value of Chinese enterprises’ R&D investment.