The Impact of Intellectual Capital on the Profitability of Russian Agricultural Firms

Economic efficiency is a function of two types of resources: those that are presented in financial statements and those that are not. Non-balance sheet resources are referred as to intellectual capital (IC). The purpose of the paper is to investigate the relationship between IC, its components and the level of financial profitability. To conduct the analysis, we used the system generalized method of moments for a broad sample of Russian firms that operate in the agribusiness industry. We employed two financial approaches to IC estimation. The first one is the Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC). The second one is own-created approach that is supposed to respond the criticism regarding VAIC. Comparison between VAIC and own-created approach to IC estimation revealed that the latter is more appropriate due to its advantages. Our approach unlike VAIC allows measuring both efficiency ratios and the stocks of IC. The results showed that the efficiency of structural capital usage and the stock of human capital have the biggest impact on the profitability level of the agricultural businesses among employed measures of IC.