Engines of Growth: Economic Contributions of the U.S. Intellectual Property Industries, authored by Stephen E. Siwek of Economists Incorporated, has just been released. From the Executive Summary:

Engines of Growth: Economic Contributions of the U.S. Intellectual Property Industries is the first study that quantifies the economic contributions of intellectual property (IP) industries to the U.S. economy. The report concludes that the U.S. IP industries are:

- the most important growth drivers in the current U.S. economy, contributing nearly 40% of the growth achieved by all U.S. private industry and nearly 60% of the growth of U.S. exportable products and services;

- crucial to the future growth of the U.S. economy; gross domestic product (GDP) 10-year growth estimates would be approximately 30% lower than current predictions without the contributions of these industries;

- essential contributors to U.S. GDP, responsible for 1/5 of the total U.S. private industry’s contribution to GDP and 2/5 of the contribution of U.S. exportable products and services to GDP;

- among the largest and highest-paying employers in the country, representing 18 million workers who earn on average 40% more than all U.S. workers;

- increasingly contributing to the U.S. economy —- in 2003 the “core copyright industries contributed $33 billion in reported net export revenues, and the patent-dependent aerospace industry reported 2004 net export revenues of $32 billion; these two sectors are the largest positive contributors to U.S. balance of trade.

This is the latest in a series of recent reports confirming the immense economic importance of the intellectual property industries. Others:

Robert J. Shapiro & Kevin Hassett, The Economic Value of Intellectual Property (Oct. 2005), discussed here;

OECD, Intellectual Property as an Economic Asset: Key Issues in Valuation and Exploitation (Background and Issues) (2005), discussed here;

International Chamber of Commerce, Intellectual Property: Source of innovation, creativity, growth and progress, (Aug. 2005), discussed here.

These reports have been supported by business groups or content companies -- this latest was commissioned by NBC Universal -- but its the data that counts, and the data is pretty overwhelming.

UPGRADE (01:40 P.M.): The study is available on the NBC Universal website, together with the company's press release and a press contact.