1. Giles Wilkes shows this graph, drawn in turn from OECD via ONS for total investment as a share of GDP. The UK is resoundingly at the bottom
2. Fernald and Inklaar, in an excellent piece, look over a longer period, including and excluding dwellings
(EU-5 are appropriate PPP-weighted Törnquist indices for Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Finland).
Some points.
a. note that excluding dwellings is a big deal. The EU lags the US in recent data when you do this (remember dwellings are around 20% of total GFCF in countries like the US, and UK, Germany, France: 30% in Spain, see Table 3 in ONS).
b. the very low UK story in the Wilkes table is a post 1990 story. Before then the UK was with other countries. So if we want to say why the UK is so low, we have to say why it was high before 1990.
3. What if we include intangibles Fernald and Inklaar then show, using our EUKLEMS-INTANProd dataset this really matters
Some points.
a. note how the UK is more in line with others, though this is a shorter time span
b. Note the UK flatlining since 2016, the Brexit referendum.
