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

39 Pages Posted: 2 Sep 2013

See all articles by Thomas Niebel

Thomas Niebel

ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research

Mary O’Mahony

University of Birmingham

Marianne Saam

ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research - Information and Communication Technologies Research Group

Date Written: August 15, 2013

Abstract

In this paper we report on new data on intangible investment at the level of 1-digit NACE industries of 10 EU countries. The data are constructed as a sectoral breakdown of the INTANInvest database, which contains measures of intangible investment at the level of the aggregate business sector. With the sectoral data we assess the contribution of intangibles to productivity growth based on growth accounting and econometric estimation of production functions. The growth accounting contribution of intangibles to labor productivity growth is generally highest in manufacturing and finance. The estimated output elasticity of intangibles lies between 0.1 and 0.2, considerably below values found in previous research using aggregate data.

Keywords: Intangible Assets, Labor Productivity, Growth Accounting, Panel Regressions

JEL Classification: E22, J24, O47

Suggested Citation

Niebel, Thomas and O’Mahony, Mary and Saam, Marianne, The Contribution of Intangible Assets to Sectoral Productivity Growth in the EU (August 15, 2013). ZEW - Centre for European Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 13-62, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2319362 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2319362

Thomas Niebel (Contact Author)

ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research ( email )

P.O. Box 10 34 43
L 7,1
D-68034 Mannheim, 68034
Germany

Mary O’Mahony

University of Birmingham

Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT
United Kingdom

Marianne Saam

ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research - Information and Communication Technologies Research Group ( email )

D-68034 Mannheim
Germany

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