Knowledge has in recent years become a key driver for growth of regions and nations. This volume empirically investigates the emergence of the knowledge economy in the late 20th century from a regional point of view. It first deals with the theoretical background for understanding the knowledge economy, with knowledge spillovers and development externalities. It then examines aspects of the relationship between knowledge inputs and innovative outputs in the information, computer and telecommunications sector (ICT) of the economy at the regional level. Case studies focusing on a wide variety of sectors, countries and regions finally illustrate important regional innovation issues.
Revolutionary account of the transformative potential of the knowledge economy Adam Smith and Karl Marx recognized that the best way to understand the economy is to study the most advanced practice of production. Today that practice is no longer conventional manufacturing: it is the radically innovative vanguard known as the knowledge economy. In every part of the production system it remains a fringe excluding the vast majority of workers and businesses. This book explores the hidden nature of the knowledge economy and its possible futures. The confinement of the knowledge economy to these insular vanguards has become a driver of economic stagnation and inequality throughout the world. Traditional mass production has stopped working as a shortcut to economic growth. But the alternative—a deepened and socially inclusive form of the knowledge economy—continues to lie beyond reach in even the richest countries. The shape of contemporary politics on both the left and the right reflects a failure to come to terms with this dilemma and to overcome it. Unger explains the knowledge economy in the truncated and confined form that it has today and proposes the way to a knowledge economy for the many: changes not just in economic institutions but also in education, culture, and politics. Just as Smith and Marx did in their time, he uses an understanding of the most advanced practice of production to rethink both economics and the economy as a whole.
This book presents new evidence concerning the influential role of context and institutions on the relations between knowledge, innovation, clusters and learning. From a truly international perspective, the expert contributors capture the most interesting and relevant aspects of knowledge economy. They explore an evolutionary explanation of how culture can play a significant role in learning and the development of skills. Presenting new data and theory developments, this insightful book reveals how changes in the dynamics of knowledge influence the circumstances under which innovation occurs. It also examines cluster development in the knowledge economy, from regional to virtual space. This volume will prove invaluable to academics and researchers who are interested in exploring new ideas surrounding the knowledge economy. Those employed in consultant firms and the public sector, where an understanding of the knowledge economy is important, will also find plenty of relevant information in this enriching compendium.
With a farm of pigs as his abacus, Arthur Geisert uses elements of a search and count game to bring Roman numerals to life in this unintimidating math-concept book. First, the seven Roman numerals are equated with the correct number of piglets. Then the reader may practice counting other items—hot-air balloons, gopher holes, and more—as the remarkable adventure unfolds. (And yes, there are one thousand pigs in the etching for M!)
Knowledge has in recent years become a key driver for growth of regions and nations. This volume empirically investigates the emergence of the knowledge economy in the late 20th century from a regional point of view. It first deals with the theoretical background for understanding the knowledge economy, with knowledge spillovers and development externalities. It then examines aspects of the relationship between knowledge inputs and innovative outputs in the information, computer and telecommunications sector (ICT) of the economy at the regional level. Case studies focusing on a wide variety of sectors, countries and regions finally illustrate important regional innovation issues.
First published in 2000. Over the past two decades, the service sector have increased dramatically and now occupy the largest share of the economy of advanced industrial societies. Certain business services are regularly cited as evidence for the emergence of a "knowledge economy". In this pioneering book, leading researchers in the fields of service industries and innovation studies investigate the reasons for the growth of the service sectors and this emergent knowledge economy. Drawing on material as diverse as macroeconomic statistics and firm-level case studies, the contributors demonstrate that services are often important innovators in their own right, as well as contributing to innovation and economic performance in their user industries. The question of how far services are special cases, and what specific processes and trajectories characterize their innovative activity is treated systematically. Additionally, a variety of original analyses and information resources are presented. This book should be of value to the student of the modern industrial society, to those seeking to forge policies appropriate to the new context of economic development, and to researchers who are confronting the challenges of the knowledge economy.
The conditions for sustainable growth and development are among the most debated topics in economics, and the consensus is that institutions matter greatly in explaining why some economies are more successful than others over time. This book explores the relationship between economic conditions, growth, and inequality.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution debate has raged about the sources of the new, sustained western prosperity. Margaret Jacob here argues persuasively for the critical importance of knowledge in Europe's economic transformation during the period from 1750 to 1850, first in Britain and then in selected parts of northern and western Europe. This is a new history of economic development in which minds, books, lectures and education become central. She shows how, armed with knowledge and know-how and inspired by the desire to get rich, entrepreneurs emerged within an industrial culture wedded to scientific knowledge and technology. She charts how, across a series of industries and nations, innovative engineers and entrepreneurs sought to make sense and a profit out of the world around them. Skilled hands matched minds steeped in the knowledge systems new to the eighteenth century to transform the economic destiny of western Europe.
This book addresses the recent impact of the ‘knowledge-based economy’ as an economic ‘imaginary’ and as a set of real economic developments on education, and especially higher education in Europe, including educational strategies and policies such as those of the Bologna process on a European scale.
The growth of technological and scientific knowledge in the past two centuries has been the overriding dynamic element in the economic and social history of the world. Its result is now often called the knowledge economy. But what are the historical origins of this revolution and what have been its mechanisms? In The Gifts of Athena, Joel Mokyr constructs an original framework to analyze the concept of "useful" knowledge. He argues that the growth explosion in the modern West in the past two centuries was driven not just by the appearance of new technological ideas but also by the improved access to these ideas in society at large--as made possible by social networks comprising universities, publishers, professional sciences, and kindred institutions. Through a wealth of historical evidence set in clear and lively prose, he shows that changes in the intellectual and social environment and the institutional background in which knowledge was generated and disseminated brought about the Industrial Revolution, followed by sustained economic growth and continuing technological change. Mokyr draws a link between intellectual forces such as the European enlightenment and subsequent economic changes of the nineteenth century, and follows their development into the twentieth century. He further explores some of the key implications of the knowledge revolution. Among these is the rise and fall of the "factory system" as an organizing principle of modern economic organization. He analyzes the impact of this revolution on information technology and communications as well as on the public's state of health and the structure of households. By examining the social and political roots of resistance to new knowledge, Mokyr also links growth in knowledge to political economy and connects the economic history of technology to the New Institutional Economics. The Gifts of Athena provides crucial insights into a matter of fundamental concern to a range of disciplines including economics, economic history, political economy, the history of technology, and the history of science.
