Advertising, Intangible Assets, and Unpriced Entertainment

The author argues that in both roles advertising’s contribution to output is being undermeasured in the national income accounts. In some cases one unit of nominal advertising input should be counted as two units of real output. In rough orders of magnitude, he argues that it is plausible that two-thirds of advertising expenditure represents unmeasured contributions to output, and the level of real GDP should be increased accordingly.