Disclosure of intangible liabilities: comparative study of the banking sectors in Panama and Colombia

This research examines the likelihood that Panamanian and Colombian banks listed on their respective stock exchanges voluntarily disclose intangible liabilities based on such variables as their size, profitability, indebtedness, age and growth. The presented findings concur with agency theory, signalling theory and the owner-cost theory.

The authors propose a probabilistic model to test the influence of size, profitability, indebtedness, age and growth on the disclosure of intangible liabilities. The dependent variable, the disclosure index, was constructed from a dichotomous approach using Harvey and Lusch's (1999) model, which has 24 characteristics, plus six that we added in our research. These were grouped into four categories: procedures, human activity, information and organisational structure.

Banks in Panama and Colombia with a larger size, higher profitability, lower age and higher growth are more likely to disclose more information about their intangible liabilities. However, indebtedness does not serve as a determinant of the disclosure of these liabilities, even though its relationship is negative.

The limitation of the research was the voluntary disclosure of information about these liabilities on firms' websites.

The contributions of this research are as follows. First, we used an intangible asset disclosure methodology to verify the disclosure of intangible liabilities, in line with Harvey and Lusch's model, as well as providing another six indicators, thereby producing an extended model. Second, being the first empirical research to study the disclosure of intangible liabilities in Panama and Colombia opens a door to future research on this topic.

This research provides a significant practical contribution to society because banks listed on public stock markets, understanding that undisclosed intangible liabilities lead to opportunity costs in their profitability, might tend to disclose more information, thus promoting greater transparency in the market.

The main contribution of this research is applying an intangible asset disclosure methodology to the disclosure of intangible liabilities, following Harvey and Lusch's (1999) model, as well as the creation of an expanded model.