About GLOBALINTO

Close to ten years after the start of the financial crisis, productivity growth rates are still very low in European Union (EU) and OECD countries (Van Ark and Jäger 2017). And while low growth may very well still be connected to the financial crisis, it also appears to be part of a longer term slowdown in productivity growth since the 1970’s. This has prompted strong attention to possible reasons for the slowdown and potential policy responses also in relation to intangible capital.

While a number of possible explanations have been put forward, we lack convincing evidence of the main reasons behind the slowdown. Both research and policy are hampered by a lack of data and evidence. The GLOBALINTO project seeks to fill this gap.

The focus of GLOBALINTO, both in measurement and analysis, is on the role of intangibles; how they can be measured in a sustainable manner, their accumulation and diffusion, and their use in generating innovation and productivity growth. These processes are central in understanding the underlying factors behind the role of globalization, demographic change, the public sector and growth in SMEs.

GLOBALINTO will:

• Review existing literature, methodologies and data for measuring intangible assets
• Conduct conceptual work on intangible assets and their relation to innovation and productivity, mapping key factors such as globalization and the role of value chains, how the demand side affects innovation and productivity, IT and digitization, and the role of public sector intangibles.
• Develop new measures of intangibles and advanced methods to link data and construct them.
• Utilize this new data to analyse the various potential explanations of the productivity puzzle, at both micro and macro levels.
• Conduct analyses of existing economic policies and their role in promoting intangibles investment, innovation and productivity growth

The project runs from February 2019 to April 2022.