Are Intangibles Running out of Steam?

First, even though the share intangibles have not run out of steam in of intangible investment in nominal value terms of growth, the rates of growth of the added in the market-sector has continued intangible stock and the contribution of in- to increase since the GFC, the growth of tangible capital deepening to productivity real investment for “technology-related” in- growth have slowed somewhat,. [...] for the investment shares of tangibles and The increase in the investment shares in intangibles in nominal gross value added columns (1)-(3) are, in part, due to the (GVA), the growth rates of real investment slower growth of the denominator (nomi- and of the capital stock for the market sec- nal GDP in the market-sector), which has tor for the periods 1996-2007 and 2011- increased more slowly fro. [...] In contrast, the growth of intan- The United Kingdom and the United gible investment showed no acceleration in States clearly exhibited higher GVA shares Europe across either category.10 for intangibles than the EU, even though The picture becomes somewhat more there has been a narrowing of the gap sobering, when moving from the growth in between the EU and the United King- investment to that of s. [...] INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY MONITOR 47 the United Kingdom (1.1 points) and the accounted for four fifths (81 per cent) of United States (0.8 points) than in the EU the EU’s slowdown in labour productivity (0.4 points) (column 3).13 growth.15 Despite the modest slowdown in the The weakening in the contribution of growth of the intangible capital stock, dis- tangible capital deepening to productivity. [...] This States the slowdown was 1 point in the was true by a large margin in the United intensive group versus 0.6 points in the Kingdom and the United States, though less intensive group, and the gap was even less in the EU (and only for the pe- larger in the United Kingdom at 1.5 points riod 1996-2007).18 However, strikingly, in the intensive group and 0.5 points in the industries which are relativ.