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Measuring capital and technology: an expanded framework

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Author Info
Carol Corrado
Charles Hulten
Daniel Sichel

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Abstract

Business outlays on intangible assets are usually expensed in economic and financial accounts. Following Hulten (1979), this paper develops an intertemporal framework for measuring capital in which consumer utility maximization governs the expenditures that are current consumption versus those that are capital investment. This framework suggests that any business outlay that is intended to increase future rather than current consumption should be treated as capital investment. Applying this principle to newly developed estimates of business spending on intangibles, we find that, by about the mid-1990s, business investment in intangible capital was as large as business investment in traditional, tangible capital. Relative to official measures, our framework portrays the U.S. economy as having had higher gross private saving and, under plausible assumptions, fractionally higher average annual rates of change in real output and labor productivity from 1995 to 2002.

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Paper provided by Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.) in its series Finance and Economics Discussion Series with number 2004-65.

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Date of creation: 2004
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2004-65

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Keywords: Capital investments ; Industrial productivity;

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This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports: References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2000. "Is the stock market overvalued?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall, pages 20-40. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Griliches, Zvi, 1981. "Market value, R&D, and patents," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 183-187. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Charles R. Hulten, 2001. "Total Factor Productivity. A Short Biography," NBER Chapters, in: New Developments in Productivity Analysis, pages 1-54 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  4. Robert E. Hall, 2001. "The Stock Market and Capital Accumulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1185-1202, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Cockburn, Iain & Griliches, Zvi, 1988. "Industry Effects and Appropriability Measures in the Stock Market's Valuation of R&D and Patents," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 419-23, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel, 2002. "Information technology and productivity: where are we now and where are we going?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Q3, pages 15-44. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Stephen R. Bond & Jason G. Cummins, 2000. "The Stock Market and Investment in the New Economy: Some Tangible Facts and Intangible Fictions," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 31(2000-1), pages 61-124. [Downloadable!]
  8. Hulten, Charles R, 1979. "On the "Importance" of Productivity Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(1), pages 126-36, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Bronwyn H. Hall & Robert E. Hall, 1993. "The Value and Performance of U.S. Corporations," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(1993-1), pages 1-50. [Downloadable!]
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  12. Black, Sandra E & Lynch, Lisa M, 1996. "Human-Capital Investments and Productivity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 263-67, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Leonard Nakamura, 2001. "What is the U.S. gross investment in intangibles? (At least) one trillion dollars a year!," Working Papers 01-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
  15. Prescott, Edward C & Visscher, Michael, 1980. "Organization Capital," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(3), pages 446-61, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Landes, Elisabeth M & Rosenfield, Andrew M, 1994. "The Durability of Advertising Revisited," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(3), pages 263-76, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Robert E. Hall, 2001. "Struggling to Understand the Stock Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 1-11, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Supriyo De, 2007. "Software Production, Human Capital and Endogenous Growth: Theoretical Analysis and Empirical Evidence from India," DEGIT Conference Papers c012_007, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade. [Downloadable!]
  2. Stephen D. Oliner & Daniel E. Sichel. & Kevin J. Stiroh, 2007. "Explaining a productive decade," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-63, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  3. Gene M. Grossman & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "The rise of offshoring: it's not wine for cloth anymore," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 59-102. [Downloadable!]
  4. Carol Corrado & Charles Hulten & Daniel Sichel, 2006. "Intangible capital and economic growth," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-24, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  5. W. Erwin Diewert & Alice O. Nakamura, 2009. "Accounting for housing in a CPI," Working Papers 09-4, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2008. "Technology Capital and the U.S. Current Account," NBER Working Papers 13983, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Jukka Jalava & Pirkko Aulin-Ahmavaara & Aku Alanen, 2007. "Intangible Capital in the Finnish Business Sector 1975-2005," Discussion Papers 1103, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy. [Downloadable!]
  8. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2007. "Unmeasured Investment and the Puzzling U.S. Boom in the 1990s," NBER Working Papers 13499, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Nicholas Oulton & Sylaja Srinivasan, 2005. "Productivity Growth and the Role of ICT in the United Kingdom: An Industry View, 1970-2000," CEP Discussion Papers dp0681, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  10. Bart van Ark & Charles R. Hulten, 2007. "Innovation, Intangibles and Economic Growth: Towards A Comprehensive Accounting of the Knowledge Economy," Economics Program Working Papers 07-02, The Conference Board, Economics Program. [Downloadable!]
  11. Mika Maliranta & Tuomo Nikulainen, 2008. "Labour Force Paths as Industry Linkages: A Perspective on Clusters and Industry Life Cycles," Discussion Papers 1168, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy. [Downloadable!]
  12. Jean-Pierre Danthine & Xiangrong Jin, 2007. "Intangible capital, corporate valuation and asset pricing," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 157-177, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Francisco Moris & John Jankowski & Pierre Perrolle, 2008. "Advancing measures of innovation in the United States," The Journal of Technology Transfer, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 123-130, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Andrew Figura & William Wascher, 2008. "The causes and consequences of economic restructuring: evidence from the early 21st century," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2008-41, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  15. Ellen R. McGrattan & Edward C. Prescott, 2005. "Taxes, regulations, and the value of U.S. and U.K. corporations," Staff Report 309, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  16. Charles R. Hulten, 2006. "The "Architecture" of Capital Accounting: Basic Design Principles," NBER Chapters, in: A New Architecture for the U.S. National Accounts, pages 193-214 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
  17. Che, Natasha Xingyuan, 2009. "The great dissolution: organization capital and diverging volatility puzzle," MPRA Paper 13701, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  18. Edquist, Harald, 2009. "How Much does Sweden Invest in Intangible Assets?," Working Paper Series 785, Research Institute of Industrial Economics. [Downloadable!]
  19. Aitor Lacuesta & Omar Licandro & Teresa Molina & Luis A. Puch, 2009. "Innovation, Tangible and Intangible Investments and the Value of Spanish Firms," Working Papers 2009-19, FEDEA. [Downloadable!]
  20. Charles R. Hulten, 2009. "Growth Accounting," NBER Working Papers 15341, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Nicholas Oulton & Sylaja Srinivasan, . "Productivity growth in UK industries, 1970-2000: structural change and the role of ICT," Bank of England working papers 259, Bank of England. [Downloadable!]
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