Knowra Knowledge economy Knowledge economy An economy in which creating, applying, and exchanging knowledge are major sources of productivity and value. It relies heavily on skilled work, research, education, and information flows.
Human capital : The knowledge, skills, health, and abilities embodied in people that contribute to economic activity. Education and experience build workers’ capacity to create and apply economically valuable knowledge.
Research and development : Systematic creative work undertaken to expand knowledge and develop new applications. R&D generates discoveries and inventions that can feed new economic activity.
Peter Drucker : An Austrian-American management thinker who analyzed the roles of information, expertise, and knowledge in modern organizations. Drucker popularized the idea that knowledge had become a central economic resource.
Skill-biased technological change : Technological change that raises demand for skilled workers relative to less-skilled workers. Knowledge-intensive technologies can widen wage and employment differences by skill.
Industrial economy : An economy centered on manufacturing, mechanized production, and the transformation of physical materials. It contrasts with economies where knowledge creation and application are especially prominent sources of value.
Knowledge spillover : The diffusion of ideas or expertise beyond the people and organizations that first produced them. Knowledge can raise productivity beyond the firm that paid to develop it.
Education : The organized process of teaching and learning knowledge, skills, and dispositions. Education develops the capabilities that knowledge-intensive work requires.
Post-industrial society : A social and economic formation in which services and information work outweigh industrial production. The shift toward services and information work created conditions for describing economies as knowledge-based.
Global value chain : The cross-border sequence of activities through which a product or service is designed, made, and delivered. Knowledge work can be separated from manufacturing and coordinated across countries.
Service economy : An economy in which services account for a large share of output and employment. Services may be knowledge-intensive, but the category includes activities not centered on knowledge creation.
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