IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/niesru/v249y2019i1pr17-r29.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring the Other Half: New Measures of Intangible Investment from the ONS

Author

Listed:
  • Josh Martin

Abstract

Only half of investment by firms is in physical capital, such as buildings and machinery. The other half is in intangible assets, such as branding, software and training. This has been true for the past two decades or more in the UK, but only if you step beyond the measures in the National Accounts, which include only some of the recognised intangible assets. This paper surveys ongoing work at the Office for National Statistics to develop measures of investment in intangible assets, using new insights and innovative approaches. In particular, this paper reviews developments in three areas: in-house branding investments, employer-funded training investments, and in-house investments in organisational capital. We reconsider some of the key assumptions made in the literature and propose alternative approaches to measurement. The paper concludes by considering implications of this work, and identifies some of the remaining gaps in the evidence base for measuring intangible assets.

Suggested Citation

  • Josh Martin, 2019. "Measuring the Other Half: New Measures of Intangible Investment from the ONS," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 249(1), pages 17-29, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:niesru:v:249:y:2019:i:1:p:r17-r29
    DOI: 10.1177/002795011924900111
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/002795011924900111
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/002795011924900111?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    intangible assets; capital; investment; branding; marketing; organisational capital; intellectual property; training;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E22 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Investment; Capital; Intangible Capital; Capacity
    • J24 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
    • O34 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Intellectual Property and Intellectual Capital
    • M53 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Training

    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:sae:niesru:v:249:y:2019:i:1:p:r17-r29. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/niesruk.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.