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We investigate the relationship between R&D investments and loan spread. Prior research documents that R&D is associated with greater future benefits and risks, suggesting that the valuation of R&D depends on a tradeoff between the two. Some research finds that bondholders consider that the benefits of R&D outweigh its risks: R&D is negatively associated with bond yields. This is surprising given that debt holders are more concerned about downside risk due to asymmetric payoffs. Using data on private debt from the US, we find an overall positive association between loan spread and R&D intensity, suggesting that the riskiness of R&D appears to outweigh its benefits for private lenders. Furthermore, an asymmetric payoff structure implies that the risks of R&D for lenders increase with default risk. Consistent with this argument, we find a positive association between R&D and loan spread for firms that are smaller, with high default-risk ratings, unrated (no public debt), or in industries with weaker legal protection. Unrated firms are in the most R&D-intensive group and make up nearly 60% of the firms with private debt. Consequently, studies that exclude unrated firms are likely to present an incomplete picture of the perspective of debt holders on R&D.

Prior research suggests that loss firms are valued based on their abandonment/adaptation option values, while profit firms are valued as going concerns. However, conservative accounting treatment of expensing of R&D leads many R&D-intensive firms to report losses even though they are not in financial distress. In this paper we investigate the difference in valuation of profit and loss firms that invest in intangibles, either through internal development (R&D) or purchases. The accounting treatment for internally developed intangibles is conservative in that US GAAP requires immediate expensing. Yet, it allows recognition of purchased intangibles. We find that in valuation of firms with high recognized-intangible assets, book value has more prominence in loss firms than profit firms, while that is not the case for firms with high R&D expenditures. This suggests that their abandonment/adaptation option explains the difference in valuation between profit and loss firms with high recognized-intangibles, while conservative accounting explains the valuation difference between profit and loss firms with high R&D intensity. This result suggests that recognition of intangibles in financial statements might mitigate the conservative bias in accounting numbers.

This study shows that future abnormal returns to R&D increases are concentrated around subsequent earnings announcements. It further shows that market expectations, implied from stock prices, underestimate the future earnings benefits of increase in R&D. Finally, it documents that in their forecasts of future earnings, security analysts also underestimate the effect of increase in R&D spending. These results suggest that future abnormal returns following R&D increases are at least in part due to the market's underestimation of the earnings benefits of R&D increases. The finding in this study contributes to the longstanding debate in accounting on whether the US GAAP requirement to expense R&D costs when incurred causes investors to underestimate the benefits of R&D.