COINVEST:Competitiveness, Innovation and Intangible

Investment in Europe

Project briefing: who, what and how

EU, 28th May 2008, Brussels

Funded by FP7Co-ordinator: Jonathan Haskel

Queen Mary, University of London: CEPR, CeRiBA, and IZA

Website : www.coinvest.org.ukEmail: coinvest@qmul.ac.uk

Organisation name Country

Main people involved

Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL)

United Kingdom Jonathan Haskel, Annarosa Pesole, Pamela Harling (Admin)

The Conference Board Europe (TCBE) Belgium Bart van Ark, Carol Corrado, Charles R. Hulten ,Janet Ho, Vlad Manole,

Zentrum fuer Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung GmbH (ZEW)

Germany Georg Licht, Bettina Peters

GRECSTA/INSEE (CNRS-GRECSTA)

France Jacques Mairesse, Gilbert Cette

Istituto Superior Técnico Lisboa (IST) Portugal Pedro Martins, Francisco Lima Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)

Sweden Henrik Jordahl, Harald Edquist

Club Ekonomika 2000 (CLUB2000) Bulgaria Todor Gradev

1. Who

1. Who (contd)• Statistics agencies

– UK – France– EUKLEMS contacts via Bart van Ark

• Other bodies– OECD (Yoshi Tojo)– US (NSF/BEA Innovation Accounting project)– UK (BERR, NESTA Innovation Index project)– Other FP7 projects e.g INNODRIVE

2. What? Expected results and policy relevance

• Intense policy interest in – productivity– innovation record– why the gap with the US

• Policy needs– Knowledge economy increasingly important– Data sparse– Activity and Impact on prod and innovation might be hidden by data

problems• activity: much inn activity is hidden (e.g. non-scientific R&D, own

account)• impact: much inn impact is hidden (accounts treats most intangible

investment as an intermedite, so GDP unaffected )• Results

– Improved macro measurement and analysis– Improved micro evidence base

3. How? Method developed and used: Macro

• Macro side: measure activity and impact– Activity

• Ongoing SNA work on capitalisation of software and R&D• Broaden to included other intangible categories such as

design, training, branding, organisational investment

– Impact• Recalculate investment, GDP• Revisit

– sources of growth

– Productivity levels

3. How? Method developed and usedMicro

• Micro sideExploration of different firm level data sets.

• Micro data on firms from CIS etc.• Company accounts• Purchases surveys• Regulation cases

• Development better estimates of – Prices– Depreciation– Spending/investment

• Informed by matched employer/employee data