How Much Intangible Value Is Already Counted?
Recorded intellectual-property products inside current-value net worth versus the residual market premium · U.S. nonfinancial corporations · 2009–2025. Recorded IP products reached $4.6T in 2025, while the residual market premium reached $50.9T. Measured software, R&D, and artistic originals are already inside net worth; the residual is much broader and cannot simply be renamed ‘intangibles.’
What does it show?
Recorded IP products reached $4.6T in 2025, while the residual market premium reached $50.9T. Measured software, R&D, and artistic originals are already inside net worth; the residual is much broader and cannot simply be renamed ‘intangibles.’
Methodology
Use calendar-year-end observations from Federal Reserve Financial Accounts table S.11.1.b for U.S. nonfinancial corporate business. Total equity at market value (LM103181105.Q) is compared with net worth, defined as assets minus non-equity liabilities (FL102090005.Q). The market premium is the arithmetic residual: total equity minus recorded net worth. Intellectual-property products already recorded at current cost (LM105013765.Q) are retained as context but remain inside recorded net worth. Values are end-of-period and not seasonally adjusted. Restrict the comparison to the continuously positive premium period beginning in 2009. Compare the recorded current-cost stock of nonresidential IP products with the arithmetic residual of equity market value less current-value net worth, converting both to trillions of dollars. Limitations: This is the U.S. nonfinancial corporate sector, not the S&P 500; it includes a broader corporate and foreign-direct-investment equity universe. The residual is not a direct valuation of patents, brands, software, data, organizational capital, or other intangible assets. It also reflects expectations, risk premia, sentiment, and measurement differences. Recorded net worth already includes some intellectual-property products at current replacement cost, so 'recorded' is not synonymous with 'tangible.' Federal Reserve Financial Accounts history is revised; the source release is pinned so the prototype remains auditable. The two lines are not mutually exclusive components of market equity: recorded IP is inside net worth, while the residual is outside net worth. Recorded IP is a replacement-cost estimate; the residual is a market valuation difference. Their levels are shown for scale, not because they share the same valuation method.