Capitalism Without Capital

Posted on 07 June 2017 by Jonathan Haskel

The first comprehensive account of the growing dominance of the intangible economyEarly in the twenty first century, a quiet revolution occurred For the first time, the major developed economies began to invest in intangible assets, like design, branding, RD, 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. Read Capitalism Without Capital author Jonathan Haskel – kino-fada.fr By the second semester of my freshman year at Harvard, I had started going to classes I wasn t signed up for, and had pretty much stopped going to any of the classes I was signed up for except for an introduction to economics class called Ec 10 I was fascinated by the subject, and the professor was excellent One of the first things he taught us was the supply and demand diagram.There are two assumptions you can make based on this chart The first is stillor less true today as demand f By the second semester of my freshman year at Harvard, I had started going to classes I wasn t signed up for, and had pretty much stopped going to any of the classes I was signed up for except for an introduction to economics class called Ec 10 I was fascinated by the subject, and the professor was excellent One of the first things he taught us was the supply and demand diagram.There are two assumptions you can make based on this chart The first is stillor less true today as demand for a product goes up, supply increases, and price goes down If the price gets too high, demand falls The sweet spot where the two lines i...I generally do not like the genre of popular business economic trade books, but I will make an exception for this This is a book by two economic researchers discussing the rise in importance of intangible assets in the global economy The general punchline is that these sorts of assets are not well accounted for by current economic scorekeeping but that they really have grown in importance in recent decades and that the failure to account for them has undermined our understanding of how conte I generally do not like the genre of popular business economic trade books, but I will make an exception for this This is a book by two economic researchers discussing the rise in importance of intangible assets in the global economy The general punchline is that these sorts of assets are not well accounted for by current economic scorekeeping but that they really have grown in importance in recent decades and that the failure to account for them has undermined our understanding of how contemporary economies work While the intuition behind intangible assets is not new, recent growth in such technological areas as computing, telecommunications, and software, along with the increasing sophistication of how these are applied to everyday life, has led to significant changes in contemporary economies, The authors clarify a number of concepts related to intangible assets and how they are calculated They discuss how these ...The title Capitalism Without Capital tells part of the book s story The first half of the book is simply principles of macroeconomics with explanations for gross domestic product and other variables I could have skipped that part without missing much of the story In general, intangible capital, such as human capital and technologies, have and are changing the economy This supports greater productivity and economic growth along with challenges of structural unemployment and the potential fo The title Capitalism Without Capital tells part of the book s story The first half of the book is simply pri...Capitalism Without Capital The Rise of the Intangible Economy by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, is an interesting book about the nature of intangible investments and the growing importance of them in modern economics The book covers a number of fields, including business strategy, management and leadership principles, and macroeconomics and politics It examines intangibles from multiple angles, first examining how they are measured, their characteristics, and then delving into their cons Capitalism Without Capital The Rise of the Intangible Economy by Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake, is an interesting book about the natu...I mostly skimmed it, to be honest, but most f what I read was pretty bad This is such a stereotypical business book If you want acritical take on the rise of intangibles in the economy one that draws on a wider left theoretical context check ...This book isn t what I thought it was going to be about but it was a pleasant surprise Provides a clear understandable breakdown of intangible assets vs tangible assets and how they impact and are impact...An economist from 100 or even 50 years ago would have a hard time understanding or explaining the economic clout of Google One reason why is because the measure of Google s assets is largely a measure of intangible assets nonphysical stuff Intangible assets are those that typically involve the development of specific products or processes, or are investments...Capitalism without Capital gives an excellent overview of where we are with capitalism, specifically that what drives innovation today is also driving inequality and socio political challenges Haskel does an excellent job of putting together ideas from Jaron Larnier and Peter Thiel to Thomas Piketty and Mariana Mazzucato Haskel delivers an excellent primer on what s happening today but does not go beyond Is this the end point of capitalism If not, how do we get to the next level Despite tha Capitalism without Capital gives an excellent overview of where we are with capitalism, specifically that what drives innovation today is also driving inequality and socio political challenges Haskel...The title of this book is hugely misleading and I see this as a compliment.You see, when I first saw the title, I thought this was just another management guru futuristic type of book, that would extrapolate from a small sample of biased case studies to prove bold statements about life, the universe and everything Reality turned out to be quite different, fortunately This book is a well documented and nuanced analysis, based on an extensive literature on the subject, and it is extremely care The title of this book is hugely misleading and I see this as a compliment.You see, when I first saw the title, I thought this was just another management guru futuristic type of book, that would extrapolate from a small sample of biased case studies to prove bold statements about life, the universe and everything Reality turned out to be quite different, fortunately This book is a well documented and nuanced analysis, based on an extensive literature on the subject, and it is extremely careful in its policy analysis So what is it about In a few words, the book tackles the ever increasing importance of intangible assets such as intellectual property, innovative business processes and marketing ...This book argues that intangible as opposed to physical investments have fundamentally different properties, which require different managerial techniques and different regulatory and tax apparatus There are four main differences intangible assets tends to be highly scalable, involve significant sunk costs, and they tend to spillover effects and exhibit synergies with one another Haskell and Westlake take a broad view of what counts as intangible assets including not just obvious things lik This book argues that intangible as opposed to physical investments have fundamentally different properties, which require different managerial techniques and different regulatory and tax apparatus There are four main differences intangible assets tends to be highly scalable, involve significant sunk costs, and they tend to spillover effects and exhibit synergies with one another Haskell and Westlake take a broad view of what counts as intangible assets including not just obvious things like intellectual property, brands, and software, but alsosubtle things like proprietary business processes or complex supply chains As the relative dematerialization of the economy proceeds, these types of firms and policies will become everyimportant Some of theirsubtle observations concern the changing role of managers in intangible intensive economies They note the paradox tha...

07 June 2017

Jonathan Haskel