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The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent national intangible capital (NIC) explains GDP growth and to assess its impact on GDP formation in different countries. The paper brings a new perspective to explaining hidden economic drivers.

The paper introduces a new theoretically and computationally justified method, so-called ELSS model that is based on expansion and augmentation of the Cobb-Douglas production function with a wide range of NIC indicators. The method is applied by using the database that contains NIC indices for 48 countries covering the period from 2001 to 2011.

The results show that intangible capital accounts for 45 per cent of world GDP. The figure for the USA is 70.3 per cent and for the European Union 51.6 per cent. The Nordic countries stand out with a higher figure at 64.7 per cent, with NIC contributing to 72.5 per cent of GDP in Sweden, 69.7 per cent in Finland and 67.6 per cent in Denmark.

The expanded Cobb-Douglas production function is sensitive to valuations of capital inputs and sensitive to estimates of production shares for various augmenting and expanding inputs. Therefore further work is needed to develop and test methodologies for the assessment of all of these.

ELSS production function helps to give a realistic picture of the value and impact of NIC and accordingly gives evidence for accurate investment decisions for the future.

The method will help policy makers figure out what steps are needed to reduce the cross-country NIC differences.

The authors have uncovered the value of NIC beyond monetary inputs, and at the same time taken account of country specifics. The ELSS formula is comprehensive yet not too complicated to replicate. The approach significantly contributes to the development of the current research tradition into intangibles.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on 21 years of IC theory and practice as input into discussing the origins of IC, its multiple perspectives and where it is heading.

This article is based on the author's reflections of the past and vision for the future.

IC is still for many an invisible fuzzy dimension, or mainly a measuring and accounting issue. For others, it is thought of as a more and more strategic ecosystem for sustainable value creation. Is there a kind of learned blindness in financial capital accounting or ignorance of new value opportunity spaces? We need to go beyond IC reporting. We are on the edge of something, but what?

The paper presents the personal views of an internationally renowned IC academic and practitioner about what the future may hold for IC.

The paper aims to provide an assessment of a tool for the macro‐level measurement of intellectual capital developed by Corrado, Hulten and Sichel (CHS model).

The aim paper assesses the validity and accuracy of the CHS model in measuring intellectual capital in general and to see whether it has application at the national economy level.

The model's new accounting ideas have great potential, but some serious question marks remain. The key advantage of the model is that it accumulates capitalized intangibles over time. On the other hand, the elements of intellectual capital, i.e. spending on innovative property and economic competencies, software and other computerized information, are too vague and problematic.

CHS model is a rather frequently used method for measuring intellectual capital. However, its validity has not been under critical analysis or examination earlier. Therefore, the results of this paper bring important and valuable information into reliable measurement of intellectual capital and are a step forward to develop more valid methodologies within intellectual capital research.

This paper seeks to examine the calculated intangible value (CIV) method as a measure of intellectual capital (intangibles) in enterprises. The aim is to show the benefits and disadvantages of the method and its actual relation to intellectual capital.

The authors present a conceptual, theoretical and empirical analysis of CIV to assess its validity as a measure of firm's intangibles.

The result of the analyses is that CIV is connected to all types of capital assets (physical, financial, combined physical and financial and intangible) and thus it does not unambiguously relate or measure firm's intangible value(s). CIV should be seen solely as a measure of financial efficiency derived from companies' return on assets (ROA). CIV measures an overall financial recognized comparative advantage in comparison with competitors within the same branch of industry. There is no evidence to support the simplistic assumption that a company's CIV is a measure of its intellectual capital.

CIV is used quite widely for purposes of measuring intellectual capital in companies and industries. However, its validity has never been subjected to critical examination. The results of this paper provide valuable information on the reliable measurement of intellectual capital and the further development of these measurements.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the validity of the value added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) method as an indicator of intellectual capital.

The paper describes VAIC through its calculation formulae and aims to establish what exactly it is that the method measures. It also looks in detail at how intellectual capital is understood in the method, and discusses its conceptual confusions. Furthermore, the paper tests the hypothesis according to which VAIC correlates with a company's stock market value, and reflects the contradictory results of earlier studies.

The analyses show, first, that VAIC indicates the efficiency of the company's labour and capital investments, and has nothing to do with intellectual capital. Furthermore, the calculation method uses overlapping variables and has other serious validity problems. Second, the results do not lend support to the hypothesis that VAIC correlates with a company's stock market value. The main reasons behind the lack of consistency in earlier VAIC results lie in the confusion of capitalized and cash flow entities in the calculation of structural capital and in the misuse of intellectual capital concepts.

The analyses show that VAIC is an invalid measure of intellectual capital.

The result is important since the method has been widely used in micro and macro level analyses, but this is the first time it has been put to rigorous scientific analysis.

The great superiority of stainless‐steel alloys over iron, although they contain a high percentage of it, is that they do not rust when exposed to water and air and also resist corrosion when used with many chemicals. As a construction material for apparatus, stainless steel is widely used in chemical industry. Several of the alloys have many interesting mechanical properties and can easily be machined and welded. Thanks to these properties, the production of stainless steels during the last 20 years has increased more than tenfold. This article is adapted by the author from his book, Notions Pratiques de Génie Chimique, Georg éditeur, Geneva.