Intangible capital and productivity divergence
研究发现，无形资本投资在微观层面提升企业生产率，但在宏观层面加剧了前沿企业与其余企业之间的生产率分化，从而拖累整体生产率增长。
Understanding the causes of the slowdown in aggregate productivity growth is key to maintaining the competitiveness of advanced economies and ensuring long‐term economic prosperity. This paper provides evidence that investment in intangible capital, despite having a positive effect on productivity at the micro level, is a driver of the weak productivity performance at the aggregate level as it amplifies the divergence between a group of “frontier” firms and the rest of the economy. Using firm‐level data, we find that the effect of intangible capital on productivity is heterogeneous across firms within industries. Documenting the existence of divergence in productivity growth between top intangible users and the rest of firms at the industry level, we find that industries where this gap is larger are also those industries where the heterogeneity in the effect of intangible capital is highest and where average productivity growth was lower. Thus, the evidence supports the view that the use of intangible capital plays a role in explaining weak aggregate productivity growth, by intensifying differences between firms.