IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nsr/escoed/escoe-dp-2019-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The treatment of Intellectual Property in the National Accounts

Author

Listed:
  • Robin Lynch

Abstract

The paper identifies flaws in the treatment of Intellectual Property as an intangible asset in the current national accounts international standards. It is proposed that the treatment should revert to that of the 1968 System of National Accounts (SNA), where payments for access to Intellectual Property were classified as property income (income transfers) and not as payment for services as in SNA 2008 and the European System of Accounts (ESA) 2010. This dramatic change in treatment has had unfortunate results, most visibly in the case of the revision to GDP estimates for Ireland. In 2016, the estimate for Ireland's 2015 annual GDP growth was revised upwards from 7.8 per cent to 26.3 per cent. This was caused mainly by a relocation of a large multinational's registration of Intellectual Property from mainland Europe. The associated access payments were treated as a set of new exports of services, with the subsequent large increase in the GDP level and growth measures of the Irish economy. This paper sets out how the current standards lead to this widely criticised change and proposes a model which is consistent with the 1968 SNA treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Robin Lynch, 2019. "The treatment of Intellectual Property in the National Accounts," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2019-10, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    • Handle: RePEc:nsr:escoed:escoe-dp-2019-10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://escoe-website.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/14153232/ESCoE-Discussion-Paper-No.-2019-10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dale W. Jorgenson & Paul Schreyer, 2013. "Industry-Level Productivity Measurement And The 2008 System Of National Accounts," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 59(2), pages 185-211, June.
    2. Peter ven de Ven & Anne Harrison & Barbara Fraumeni & Robin Lynch & Bent Thage, 2017. "Maintaining the National Accounts as Official Statistics," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63, pages 411-436, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan Carlos Conesa & Pau S. Pujolas, 2019. "The Canadian productivity stagnation, 20022014," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(2), pages 561-583, May.
    2. Dale W. Jorgenson, 2017. "World KLEMS: Productivity and Economic Growth in the World Economy: An Introduction," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 33, pages 1-7, Fall.
    3. Diane Coyle, 2022. "Healthcare as social infrastructure: productivity and the UK NHS during and after Covid-19," Working Papers 017, The Productivity Institute.
    4. Francisco Pérez & Eva Benages, 2017. "The Role of Capital Accumulation in the Evolution of Total Factor Productivity in Spain," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 33, pages 24-50, Fall.
    5. Schubert, Torben & Jäger, Angela & Türkeli, Serdar & Visentin, Fabiana, 2020. "Addressing the productivity paradox with big data: A literature review and adaptation of the CDM econometric model," MERIT Working Papers 2020-050, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    6. Jorgenson, Dale W. & Vu, Khuong M., 2016. "The outlook for emerging economies," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 670-682.
    7. Dale W. Jorgenson & Mun S. Ho & Jon D. Samuels, 2017. "Educational Attainment and the Revival of US Economic Growth," NBER Chapters, in: Education, Skills, and Technical Change: Implications for Future US GDP Growth, pages 23-60, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Serena Fatica, 2017. "Measurement and Allocation of Capital Inputs With Taxes: A Sensitivity Analysis for OECD Countries," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(1), pages 1-29, March.
    9. Jakub Boratyński & Jacek Osiewalski, 2021. "Bayesian Estimation of Capital Stock and Depreciation in the Production Function Framework," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 13(4), pages 455-486, December.
    10. Jorgenson, Dale W. & Ho, Mun S. & Samuels, Jon D., 2016. "The impact of information technology on postwar US economic growth," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 398-411.
    11. Corby Garner & Justin Harper & Tom Howells & Matt Russell & Jon Samuels, 2018. "Backcasting the BEA/BLS Integrated Industry-level Production Account and the Sources of U.S. Economic Growth between 1987 and 2016," BEA Working Papers 0151, Bureau of Economic Analysis.
    12. Mark Haan & Erik Veldhuizen & Murat Tanriseven & Myriam Rooijen-Horsten, 2014. "The Dutch Growth Accounts: Measuring Productivity with Non-Zero Profits," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 380-397, November.
    13. Jean-Philippe Boussemart & Hervé Leleu & Edward Mensah, 2017. "Generation and distribution of the total factor productivity gains in US industries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(24), pages 2379-2393, May.
    14. Haderer, Michaela, 2022. "An Estimated DSGE Model of the Euro Area with Expectations about the Timing and Nature of Liftoff from the Lower Bound," Working Papers 2022-05, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    15. Corrado, Carol & Haskel, Jonathan & Jona-Lasinio, Cecilia, 2019. "Productivity growth, capital reallocation and the financial crisis: Evidence from Europe and the US," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    16. Wan-Jiun Chen & Chien-Ho Wang, 2020. "A General Cross-Country Panel Analysis for the Effects of Capitals and Energy, on Economic Growth and Carbon Dioxide Emissions," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-20, July.
    17. D. S. Prasada Rao & Alicia N. Rambaldi & Bert M. Balk, 2015. "On Measuring Regional or Global Growth and Inflation," Discussion Papers Series 552, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    18. W. Diewert, 2014. "US TFP growth and the contribution of changes in export and import prices to real income growth," Journal of Productivity Analysis, Springer, vol. 41(1), pages 19-39, February.
    19. Jorgenson, Dale W. & Vu, Khuong M., 2021. "The G20 and the world economy: Performance and prospects," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 770-782.
    20. Corby Garner & Justin Harper & Thomas F. Howells III & Matt Russell & Jon Samuels, 2019. "New BEA-BLS Estimates of the Sources of U.S. Economic Growth between 1987 and 2016," International Productivity Monitor, Centre for the Study of Living Standards, vol. 36, pages 187-203, Spring.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    system of national accounts; intellectual property; intangibles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E01 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth; Environmental Accounts
    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nsr:escoed:escoe-dp-2019-10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ESCoE Centre Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/escoeuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.