Technology Innovation Activity and Permanent Shareholder Wealth

Using 2,614 panel data of firms listed on the Korea Exchange over the period from 2001 to 2009, this paper examines effects of technology innovation activity on permanent shareholder wealth proxied by a permanent component of market equity. To the end, we use the Beveridge-Nelson decomposition and the conditional quantile and OLS regression method. Two kinds of regression indicate empirical evidence that technology innovation activity has a significantly positive effect on permanent shareholder wealth and that the effect is nonlinear across the conditional quantiles of firm value, where the impact is greater in higher quantiles. The results are consistent with those for the sub-samples divided into manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries. For robustness, regression results by using patents, an output index for technology innovation activity still remain valid for our principal findings. Our study provides financial managers who pursue effective investment decisions with a valuable implication of importance of TIA.