Nevertheless, the fact that investments in intangibles are more sensitive to the availability of internal funds suggests that firms could be facing financial constraints due to information asymmetries. One could say that such asymmetries result from the difficulty of assessing the collateral value of intangible assets compared with tangible assets. Consequently, there are opportunities for the banker to profit from overcoming information asymmetries.
In Japan, the ratio of investments in intangible assets to nominal GDP is lower than that in the United States and other major peers (Chart 8).