Communication and Knowledge: How is the knowledge base of an economy constructed?

Abstract

The competitive advantages in a knowledge-based economy can no longer be attributed to single nodes in the network. Political economies are increasingly reshaped by knowledge-based developments that upset market equilibria and institutional arrangements. The network coordinates the subdynamics of (i) wealth production, (ii) organized novelty production, and (iii) private appropriation versus public control. The interaction terms generate a complex dynamics which cannot be expected to contain central coordination. However, the knowledge infrastructure of systems of innovations can be measured, for example, in terms of university-industry-government relations. The mutual information in these three dimensions indicates the globalization of the knowledge base. Patent statistics and data from the Internet are compared in terms of this indicator.