When an academic, scientist, or research engineer harps on about the knowledge-based economy, it’s hard to take as anything other than shameless self-serving hyperbole. Knowledge is, after all, what these people are supposed to be producing, and now here they are, telling the rest of us that that’s what drives the economy. Combine those self-promoting tendencies with the superficial observation...

Modern economy is based more and more on knowledge. Terms such as management of knowledge, organisational learning and intelligent organisations are becoming more widespread amongst world leading companies. Over the past few years, intangible resources, based on the exploitation of ideas, have turned progressively into the real motor behind developed economies, giving place to the so-called the...

Can the increasing significance of knowledge-products in national income— the growing weightless economy—influence economic development? Those technologies reduce “distance” between consumers and knowledge production. This paper analyzes a model embodying such a reduction. The model shows how demand-side attributes—consumer attitudes on complex goods; training, education, and skills for consump...

Can the increasing significance of knowledge-products in national income— the growing weightless economy—influence economic development? Those technologies reduce “distance” between consumers and knowledge production. This paper analyzes a model embodying such a reduction. The model shows how demand-side attributes—consumer attitudes on complex goods; training, education, and skills for consump...

Internet development holds the promise of transmitting economic value across physical space at zero marginal cost. In such a “weightless economy”, what factors matter for the location of economic activity and thus for economic development? This paper sketches a model of spatial dynamics over a three-dimensional globe, where transportation costs don’t matter. The paper develops conditions under ...

That knowledge and technology matter for economic growth and performance is widely accepted. However, most formal analyses of knowledge-driven economies have focused on the supply side: productivity, and research and development. In modern high-tech economies where information and communications technologies figure prominently, just as important is the demand side of markets for goods akin to k...

Executives at APIX, Senegal’s state investment-promotion agency, cast their office as the vanguard of a new kind formation, one remade through decades austerity and resolutely focused on nation’s future. They imagined PowerPoint especially critical to this mission, it had potential move beyond confines paper form parochial bureaucratic routine into wider world. In article, I explore complex rel...