Abstract: The R&D and other innovative activities of enterprises are usually reflected by the subject of intangible assets, and the information disclosure of intangible assets can convey the important information of enterprise innovation and growth. Using the financial data from A- shares from 2007 to 2015, this paper investigates the impact of intangible assets capitalization on the performance of cultural and creative listed firms(CCFs), and examines the moderating effect of financing capacity on the correlation between intangible assets capitalization and the performance of CCFs. The results show that the improvement of intangible assets capitalization has significantly negative impact on the performance of CCFs, however, along with the cultural and creative value is recognized and confirmed by the market, the negative correlation gradually gets mitigated. Although the improvement of both the internal and external financing capacity can significantly enhance the performance of CCFs, its moderating effect on the correlation between intangible assets capitalization and performance of CCFs is not statistically significant. That is, assuming on a certain level of financing capacity, strengthening the intangible assets capitalization cannot significantly improve the performance of CCFs. Regarding to the endogenous problems and measurement errors, our conclusions are robust.

Key words: intangible assets capitalization, financing capacity, performance, signal transmission, cultural and creative firms