Intangible Capital and Growth Essays on Labor Productivity, Monetary Economics, and Political Economy, Vol. 1

For several decades now, advanced economies across the globe have been undergoing a process of rapid transformation towards becoming knowledge economies. It is now widely recognized that intangible capital has been a crucial element in the growth performance of these economies and their firms. The term serves as a useful device for capturing those dimensions of capital that are not tangible in nature but are nevertheless fundamentally important for growth. It encompasses investments in education (human capital) and in informal (social capital) and formal (rule of law) institutions by the public sector and households, as well as investments by businesses aimed at enhancing their knowledge base, such as software, innovative property, and economic competencies.

Intangible Capital and Growth is the first of two open-access volumes presenting a selection of the author's essays on Labor Productivity, Monetary Economics, and Political Economy. This first volume brings togethereight of the author's essays, selected with the aim of providing an overview of his research to date on intangible capital and growth.

Chapter 1: The Productivity Puzzle – A critical assessment and an outlook on the COVID-19 crisis.- Chapter 2: Revisiting intangible capital and labour productivity growth, 2000-2015: Accounting for the crisis and economic recovery in the EU.- Chapter 3: The Rule of Law and Labour Productivity Growth by Businesses: Evidence for the EU, 1998-2005.- Chapter 4: Organizational Trust, Organizational Fear and TFP Growth: A sectoral analysis for the EU.- Chapter 5: Intangible Capital and Labor Productivity Growth: Panel evidence for the EU from 1998-2005.- Chapter 6: Measuring Innovation – Intangible capital investment in the EU.- Chapter 7: Does too much trust hamper economic growth.- Chapter 8: Social Capital, Trust and Economic Growth.

PD Dr. Felix Roth is a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer with the Chair for International Economics in the Department of Economics at the University of Hamburg. In June 2020, he successfully completed his German Habilitation in economics on the topic of Intangible Capital and Labour Productivity Growth and Determinants of Public Support for the Euro. Prior to his appointment at the University of Hamburg, he worked six years as a Research Fellow in the macroeconomic policy unit and as editor of the journal Intereconomics at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels. In addition to his ongoing research association with the department of economics at the University of Göttingen, he worked as a Research Fellow, Scientific Expert, and Economic Policy Advisor for the European Commission in Brussels for over three years.