Where Business Investment Goes
Shares of U.S. private nonresidential fixed investment · current dollars · 1901–2024. Intellectual-property products rose from 4.5% of nonresidential investment in 1901 to 40.5% in 2024—more than structures and slightly more than equipment.
What does it show?
Intellectual-property products rose from 4.5% of nonresidential investment in 1901 to 40.5% in 2024—more than structures and slightly more than equipment.
Methodology
Use BEA Fixed Assets Accounts annual current-cost gross investment flows for private nonresidential equipment, structures, and intellectual-property products. For every year, divide each component by the sum of those three components. BEA defines intellectual-property products as software, research and development, and entertainment, literary, and artistic originals. Current-cost shares combine quantity and price change and should not be read as real growth rates. Limitations: BEA's intellectual-property category captures measured fixed assets, not brands, organizational capital, customer relationships, data, or every other economically valuable intangible. Current-cost composition can change because of asset prices as well as real investment or stock accumulation. The categories describe produced fixed assets owned by private businesses and nonprofits; they do not measure financial assets or market capitalization. BEA revises Fixed Assets history; the prototype records the workbook vintage and reruns its component-identity checks on refresh.