Intangible Capital and Economic Productivity Analytics
Summary
Intangible capital encompasses non-physical assets such as software, brands, organisational processes, design, and workforce skills. Over recent decades, these assets have come to rival or exceed traditional physical investment in driving output growth. Economic productivity analytics examines how various inputs—including intangible capital—contribute to total factor productivity (TFP) and labour productivity. By expanding conventional growth-accounting frameworks to capture unmeasured or under-measured intangible investments, researchers are reshaping our understanding of why some economies or firms outperform others. Methodological advances now allow for the systematic inclusion of categories such as computerised information, innovative property and economic competencies. These refinements reveal that intangible capital not only supports frontier innovation but also propagates across industries through organisational best practice, digital platforms and human capital development. The global significance is clear: accurately quantifying intangible assets is crucial for policy-makers aiming to stimulate sustainable productivity growth, for investors seeking genuine measures of firm value, and for managers prioritising digital transformation and skills development.
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Intangible Capital and Economic Productivity Analytics publication trend
The graph below shows the total number of articles in intangible capital and economic productivity analytics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).
Technical terms
Intangible capital: Non-physical assets such as software, brands, organisational processes, design, skills and knowledge that contribute to production.
Total factor productivity (TFP): A measure of an economy’s or firm’s efficiency in converting all inputs (labour, capital, intangibles) into output.
Growth accounting: An analytical framework that decomposes output growth into contributions from different inputs and productivity improvements.
References
- Revisiting intangible capital and labour productivity growth, 2000–2015. Journal of Intellectual Capital (2020).
- The role of intangibles in firm-level productivity – evidence from Germany. Industry and Innovation (2022).
- Digital technologies and productivity: A firm-level investigation. Economic Modelling (2023).
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