Investment in Intangible Assets in Canada: R&D, Innovation, Brand, and Mining, Oil and Gas Exploration Expenditures

Abstract

This paper presents estimates of intangible investment in Canada for the purpose of innovation, advertising and resource extraction. It first expands upon work by Beckstead and Gellatly (2003), Baldwin and Hanel (2003), Beckstead and Gellatly (2003), Beckstead and Vinodrai (2003) and Baldwin and Beckstead (2003) who argue that the scope of innovative activity extends beyond research and development (R&D) as defined by the Frascati Manual. It extends the definition of innovative activities to include all scientific and engineering expenditures - regardless of whether they are market-based or produced with a firm. The paper also considers expenditures on intangible items such as brands or resource exploration.

The paper contributes to the existing literature by creating intangible investment estimates (science and engineering knowledge, advertising, mineral exploration by industry) using Statistics Canada’s high quality and internally consistent databases. It produces estimates that accord with other intangibles studies (Corrado, Hulten and Sichel 2005, 2006; Jalava, Ahmavarra and Alanen 2007) and shows that traditional R&D type investment estimates account for about a quarter of intangible science and engineering investments.

Keywords: productivity, exploration and development, investments

JEL Classification: D24, J24, O47, E22