The first comprehensive account of the growing dominance of the intangible economy Early in the
twenty-first century a quiet revolution occurred. For the first time the major developed
economies began to invest more in intangible assets like design branding R&D and software
than in tangible assets like machinery buildings and computers. For all sorts of businesses
from tech firms and pharma companies to coffee shops and gyms the ability to deploy assets
that one can neither see nor touch is increasingly the main source of long-term success. But
this is not just a familiar story of the so-called new economy. Capitalism without Capital
shows that the growing importance of intangible assets has also played a role in some of the
big economic changes of the last decade. The rise of intangible investment is Jonathan Haskel
and Stian Westlake argue an underappreciated cause of phenomena from economic inequality to
stagnating productivity. Haskel and Westlake bring together a decade of research on how to
measure intangible investment and its impact on national accounts showing the amount different
countries invest in intangibles how this has changed over time and the latest thinking on how
to assess this. They explore the unusual economic characteristics of intangible investment and
discuss how these features make an intangible-rich economy fundamentally different from one
based on tangibles. Capitalism without Capital concludes by presenting three possible scenarios
for what the future of an intangible world might be like and by outlining how managers
investors and policymakers can exploit the characteristics of an intangible age to grow their
businesses portfolios and economies.
