The Value of Software
研究了软件在数字经济中的定价问题，发现1996至2023年间软件公司市值占比从2%升至13%，但其增长预测和股票回报存在长期异常，表明市场缓慢学习软件的重要性。
Software is one of the most important assets that needs to be priced in the digital economy. It has emerged as a disruptive technology, with companies primarily valued for their software offerings growing from 2 percent to 13 percent of market share between 1996 and 2023. We document persistent anomalies in growth forecasts and stock returns for software companies, indicating significant deviations from rational expectations over multiple decades. Our findings are consistent with Bayesian investors gradually learning about software’s growing importance, highlighting how markets can be very slow to discern fundamental shifts from transient shocks in noisy data.