Corporate investment rates and investment rates in information and communication technologies in the United States and the euro zone

One of the reasons often put forward to explain the growth advantage of the United States over the euro zone is that US companies invest more than European companies, particularly when it comes to investment in new technologies. In addition, economic policies in the United States (Inflation Reduction Act, Chips Act, etc.) are designed to stimulate investment in the energy transition and in electronics (semiconductors, etc.). We estimate the scale of the additional corporate investment and investment in new technologies in the United States compared with the euro zone, and the additional growth that this higher investment in the United States allows it to obtain. We see that: It is the investment rate in new technologies, including software, that provides the best explanation, when comparing OECD countries, for the differences between their productivity gains; The fact that the United States has an investment rate in new technologies, including software, that is 1.9 percentage points of GDP higher on average than that of the euro zone explains 50% of the productivity growth gap between the United States and the euro zone (0.75 percentage point per year compared with the actual productivity growth gap between the United States and the euro zone, which was 1.5 percentage point per year over the period 2002-2022).