It’s possible that some types of investment are not showing up in the statistics because they are intangible in nature. Of course, issues surrounding the measurement of intangible capital have been around for decades.
For instance, computer software started to be included in investment in the 1990s.7 Even if they’re not showing up in official statistics, some types of investment are becoming more important to the global economy; technology to streamline business processes, database development or moving servers to the cloud are just a few examples.