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This paper argues that the rate of intangible investment-investment in the development and marketing of new products-accelerated in the wake of the electronics revolution in the 1970s. The paper presents preliminary direct and indirect empirical evidence that US private firms currently invest at least $1 trillion annually in intangibles. This rate of investment roughly equals US gross investment in nonresidential tangible assets. It also suggests that the capital stock of

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We provide evidence that transactions accounts help financial intermediaries monitor borrowers by offering lenders a continuous stream of data on borrowers' account balances. This information is most readily available to commercial banks, but other intermediaries, such as finance companies, also have access to such information at a cost. Using a unique set of data that includes monthly and annual information on small-business borrowers at an anonymous Canadian bank, we find a significant relationship between loans becoming troubled and the number of prior borrowings in excess of collateral. Since the bank monitors the value of collateral (defined as accounts receivable plus inventory) at high frequency through the transactions account of the borrower, this unique access to useful information gives banks an advantage over other lenders. We also find that banks more intensively monitor loans that have a higher number of violations of the collateral limit.