Where Each Decade’s Added Investment Dollars Went
Asset contributions to the current-dollar change in U.S. private nonresidential investment within each period · 1950–2024. IP products supplied 51.7% of the investment increase from 2019 to 2024, up from 12.2% in the 1970s. In the 2000s, equipment investment actually ended the decade lower.
What does it show?
IP products supplied 51.7% of the investment increase from 2019 to 2024, up from 12.2% in the 1970s. In the 2000s, equipment investment actually ended the decade lower.
Methodology
For each completed decade, subtract each asset class's current-dollar investment in the year before the decade from its value in the decade's final year (for example, 1949 to 1959). The latest period compares 2019 with 2024. Divide each signed asset-class change by the total change across equipment, structures, and IP products. Contributions sum to 100%, but an asset can be negative when its ending investment level is below its starting level. Limitations: BEA's intellectual-property category covers software, R&D, and artistic originals—not brands, organizational capital, customer relationships, data, or every economically valuable intangible. Current-cost values combine quantity and price change; these charts do not measure real growth unless explicitly stated. BEA revises Fixed Assets history; the generator pins the workbook vintage and reruns component and period checks. The 2020–24 observation is a partial decade and should not be compared as if it spans the same number of years as the completed decades. Signed contribution shares can exceed 100% or fall below zero when one component declines; they describe the arithmetic of the total nominal change, not a conventional all-positive composition. Because the decomposition uses current dollars, inflation and asset-specific price changes contribute to the result.