Localized technological change, new information technology and the knowledge-based economy: The European evidence

Abstract.

This work analyzes the co-evolution of new information and communication technologies and the knowledge-intensive business industry. New information technology affects the actual conditions of information, its basic characteristics of appropriation and tradability, favouring the role of business services as forces of interaction between knowledge components in the generation of new technology. Empirical analyses, based on input/output statistics of the European economy in the second half of 1980's, demonstrate the existence of a correlation between the usage of business and communication services and confirm their high output elasticity.