Are intangibles more productive in ICT-intensive industries? Evidence from EU countries

Abstract

Die Dis cus si on Pape rs die nen einer mög lichst schnel len Ver brei tung von neue ren For schungs arbei ten des ZEW. Die Bei trä ge lie gen in allei ni ger Ver ant wor tung der Auto ren und stel len nicht not wen di ger wei se die Mei nung des ZEW dar.Dis cus si on Papers are inten ded to make results of ZEW research prompt ly avai la ble to other eco no mists in order to encou ra ge dis cus si on and sug gesti ons for revi si ons. The aut hors are sole ly respon si ble for the con tents which do not neces sa ri ly repre sent the opi ni on of the ZEW. Are Intangibles More Productive in ICT- AbstractUsing sectoral intangible investment data we confirm that intangible capital is a significant determinant of labour productivity growth. The sectoral setting further allows us to identify the differential impacts of intangible capital across industries with varying degrees of ICT intensity.Intangible capital appears to be significantly more productive in ICT-intensive sectors than in those that use little ICT. This finding remains robust across various alternative industry ICT intensity measures and aligns with the prior firm-level studies that place emphasis on the complementary role of intangible assets in ICT investment.

Productivity and finance: the intangible assets channel - a firm level analysis

“…Corrado et al (2005) and Corrado and Hulten (2010) add intangible capital in a Solow-Jorgenson-Griliches sources of growth framework and show that intangibles had overtaken tangibles to become the largest source of growth; further, they find that the full recognition of intangibles, due to the adjustments in real output figures, could induce a change in U.S. measured productivity of approximately 0.25 percentage points per year in recent years. Similar evidence has been provided, for example, by Barnes and McClure (2009) for Australia, Baldwin et al (2012) for Canada, and Corrado et al (2012), Niebel et al (2013), Chen et al (2014) for the European Union. 19…”

BIG data – BIG gains? Understanding the link between big data analytics and innovation

“…The latter two are part of the more broader concept of knowledge-based capital. Based on analyses with country-and industry-level data, Chen, Niebel, and Saam (2016) and Corrado, Haskel, and Jona-Lasinio (2017) conclude that ICT capital and intangible capital (including R&D, organizational capital and firm-specific human capital) are complements in production.…”

The Contribution of Intangible Assets to Sectoral Productivity Growth in the EU

“…Recent work by Chen et al . () investigates the extent to which the effect of intangibles varies with the ICT intensity of the industries, thus looking at a source of complementarities. They find that the output elasticity of intangible assets varies between 2 percent for the industries at the lowest quartile of ICT intensities and 15 percent at the highest quartile.…”