The Impact of Capitalizing Data on Productivity Growth in the U.S.

The System of National Accounts 2025 revision recommends treating own-account data as an intangible capital asset. This study explores the impact of this recommendation on the sources of economic growth for the U.S. economy from 2002 to 2024. We use experimental estimates for own-account data and databases to modify the BEA-BLS Integrated Industry-Level Production Accounts (ILPA). The adjustments to the ILPA include changes on the output side of the accounts to capture new gross fixed capital formation. On the input side, data provides a capital service to all industries that use data. We find that including own-account data as an asset raises the contribution of IT-related capital assets to GDP growth by about one-third between 2002 and 2024, but the effects differ significantly across industries.