Innovation and Intangibles


Intangible Assets: What They Are and Why They Are Important Bart van Ark	Intangible Assets: How do they contribute to economic growth? Bart van Ark	Intangible Assets: A new framework for measurement Carol Corrado	Intangible Assets: Why we need a new framework for measurement Carol Corrado	Intangible Assets: What Are the Unique Intangibles of Your Company? Mary Adams	Intangible Assets: The four components of intangible capital Mary Adams	Intangible Assets: The challenge and opportunity of the intangible era Mary Adams

Charts on China
Intangible investment in China has grown rapidly–but is it efficient?
China’s intangible investment – high in absolute amount, small relative to conventional capex
more

Charts on China
Intangible investment in China has grown rapidly–but is it efficient?
China’s intangible investment – high in absolute amount, small relative to conventional capex
Increasing intangible investment not yielding commensurate increases in output

Webcasts

Skills and Abilities in High Demand in the US Labor Market

Intangibles Count
The Intangible Drivers of Future Performance and Value
more

On Demand Webcasts

Intangibles Count
The Intangible Drivers of Future Performance and Value
Winning Investors Over
Intangible Assets, Business Strategy and Stock Prices
Innovation: The Hidden Driver of Company Profit and National Competitiveness

Issues in Intangibles
May 2012: Vol 1, No. 2
February 2012: Vol 1, No. 1

Executive Action Report
Innovation and Intangible Assets: Gaining the Competitive Edge in Economic Recovery

Events

February 28-March 1, 2013 - Carol Corrado presented Internationalization of Intangibles (co-authored with Charles Hulten) at the Globalization and U.S. Statistics conference held in Washington D.C.
February 2013 - Carol Corrado and Charles Hulten participated in an OECD conference in Paris February 2013 on knowledge-based capital— concluding events of a OECD project that was kicked off two years ago by a conference co-hosted by The Conference Board in Washington, D.C.

Events

February 28-March 1, 2013 - Carol Corrado presented Internationalization of Intangibles (co-authored with Charles Hulten) at the Globalization and U.S. Statistics conference held in Washington D.C.
February 2013 - Carol Corrado and Charles Hulten participated in an OECD conference in Paris February 2013 on knowledge-based capital— concluding events of a OECD project that was kicked off two years ago by a conference co-hosted by The Conference Board in Washington, D.C.
December 2012 - Carol Corrado and Charles Hulten participated in a recent OECD/MIT workshop in Washington, D.C.
August 2012–Carol Corrado presented Innovation Accounting (co-authored with Charles Hulten) at the NBER CRIW conference Measuring Economic Stability and Progress, Cambridge, Mass.
August 2012–Carol Corrado presented Intangible Capital and Growth Strategies for Advanced Economies at World KLEMS Conference at Harvard University.
May 2012–Janet Hao gave a presentation to the Bureau of Economic Analysis on intangibles in China.
March 2012–Bart van Ark presented intangibles research to Asian Development Bank.
March 2012–Carol Corrado and Charles Hulten gave presentations at OECD on intangibles in the US and in China.
December 2011–Carol Corrado spoke at the Science Dialogue of the European Commission in Brussels.
October 2011–OECD interviewed Carol Corrado for advice on the intangibles program of OECD.

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U.S. non-farm business sector invested more in intangible assets than in tangible assets in recent years.

Tangible investment dropped from 11.1% of business output in 1947 to 10.0% in 2007, while intangible investment increased from 4.5% of business output to 13.7% during the same period.

Figure 1

How Do You Measure a "Technological Revolution?",
(Carol A. Corrado, Charles R. Hulten)

U.S. Intangible vs. Tangible Investment

Sources: Corrado and Hulten (2010) and Corrado et. al. (2012).

Wealthier countries seem to invest greater proportions in intangible assets.

Usually countries with low output per person are also likely to invest a small amount on intangible assets. China is an outlier, investing about 8% of GDP in intangibles.

Figure 2

Measuring Intangible Capital and its Contribution to Economic Growth in Europe
(Bart van Ark, Janet X. Hao, Carol A. Corrado, Charles R. Hulten

Intangible Investment and Output per Person, 2008.

Sources: Total Economy Database (2012), Hulten and Hao (2012), Hulten, Hao and Jaeger (2012), Dutz et. al. (2012) and Corrado et. al. (2012).

For U.S. R&D intensive firms, intangible assets amount to twice as much as tangible assets.

A panel of 633 R&D – intensive firms possessed over 40% of total assets in the form of intangible assets, ranging from R&D and brand equity to organizational structure and worker training.

For more information:
What Is a Company Really Worth? Intangible Capital and the "Market to Book Value" Puzzle
(Charles R. Hulten, Janet X. Hao)

Links
INTAN-Invest provides market sector data on intangible assets for 27 EU countries plus Norway and the US.
Intangible Capital, by Mary Adams and Michael Oleksak.

Other Downloads

Intangible Capital and growth in Advanced Economies: Measurement Methods and Comparative Results
by Carol Corrado, Jonathan Haskel, Cecilia Jona-Lasinio and Massimiliano Iommi, June 2012. Working Paper.

Constructing a Price Deflator for R&D: Calculating the Price of Knowledge Investments as a Residual
by Carol Corrado, Peter Goodridge and Jonathan Haskel, October 2011. - EPWP #11 - 03

Communication Capital, Metcalfe’s Law, and U.S. Productivity Growth
by Carol Corrado, March 2011. EPWP-2011-1

Intangible Capital in the Netherlands and its Implications for Future Growth.
by Bart van Ark and Kirsten Jäger (2010), The Conference Board Working Paper, Report commissioned by the Dutch Innovation Platform as part of their Knowledge Investment Agenda (KIA).

Macro versus Micro Comparison of Intangible Capital: The Case of Germany and the U.S.
by Charles Hulten, Janet Hao and Kirsten Jäeger, 2009. Deliverable to COINVEST project.

Intangible Capital and Growth–an International Comparison
by Janet Hao, Bart van Ark and Vlad Manole, 2009. Deliverable to COINVEST project.

Impact of ICT on Production of Goods and Services: Who Captures the Benefits of ICT? The Case of Digital Books
by Janet Hao and Randy Weiss, July 2011.

Accounting for the Knowledge Economy
by Charles Hulten, December 2008.

Entrepreneurs, Inventors and the Growth of the Economy
by William J. Baumol, December 2008.

Exploring Innovation with Firm Level Data
by Samuel Kortum, December 2008. - EPWP #08 - 11

Historical Foundations of American Technology
by Gavin Wright, December 2008. - EPWP #08 – 10

Innovation as Viewed from Within the Corporation
by Jim Lichtenberg and Christopher Woock, December 2008. - EPWP #08 – 08

Intangible Capital and the Market to Book Value Puzzle
by Charles Hulten and Janet Hao, June 2008. - EPWP #08 – 02

Market Services Productivity across Europe and the U.S.
by Robert Inklaar, Marcel P. Timmer and Bart van Ark, January 2008. Economic Policy, pp. 139-194.

Innovation, Intangibles and Economic Growth: Towards A Comprehensive Accounting of the Knowledge Economy
by Bart van Ark and Charles R. Hulten, December 2007. - EPWP #07 – 02

Appendices to "Internationally Comparable Science, Technology and Competitiveness Indicators"
by Robert H. McGuckin, Bart van Ark, Sean M. Dougherty and Robert Inklaar, May 2006. - EPWP #06 – 01

International Comparisons of R&D Expenditure: Does an R&D PPP make a difference?
by Sean M. Dougherty, Robert Inklaar, Robert H. McGuckin, and Bart Van Ark, October 2004. - EPWP #04 – 03