Atlas Flinched

[michael perelman]

Doug, you know the data better than I do.  Much of the investment is of
the sort that depreciates very quickly.  As a result, the accumulation of
capital is far less than the gross figures suggest.

I am at the economic meetings now, so maybe could point me to someplace on
the Web that gives net and gross investment figures.

Doug Henwood wrote:


> In the U.S., nonresidential fixed investment rose from about 10% of
> GDP in the early 1990s - the low of the Bush slump - to almost 14% in
> 2000; equipment investment rose from around 7% to over 10%. We can
> argue that a lot of this investment was wasted - trading rooms and
> the dot.com infrastructure - but investment did rise in the expansion.
>
>
> U.S. NONRESIDENTIAL FIXED INVESTMENT
> % of GDP, period averages
>
>                 total   structures equipment
> 1929           10.6%      5.3%      5.3%
> 1930s           6.5%      2.6%      3.8%
> 1940s           6.7%      2.4%      4.3%
> 1950s           9.4%      3.7%      5.7%
> 1960s           9.8%      3.7%      6.1%
> 1970s          11.1%      3.9%      7.2%
> 1980s          12.1%      4.3%      7.8%
> 1990s          10.8%      2.9%      7.9%
>

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu