The vagueness of the term has two major sources. First, not surprisingly, there is no agreed-upon definition regarding the threshold of when an economy is information economy and when it is not. This is partly due to the fact that research has been focused on various "increase" in informational activities, rather than the level it has achieved. It is rare to see a research seriously discussing if certain level of informatization in an economy is enough to lavel it as information economy.
Second, there are many different kinds of measurements of information-related economic indicators that are used by researchers. Contrastingly to the first problem, the second problem is not the lack of attention, but the lack of agreement among various opinions.
Two related questions regarding the term are also noteworthy. First, there is some argument, most notably by Manuel Castells, that information economy is not mutually exclusive with manufacturing economy. He finds that some countries such as Germany and Japan exhibit the informatization of manufacturing processes. In a typical conceptualization, however, information economy is considered a "stage" or "phase" of an economy, coming after stages of hunting, agriculture, and manufacturing. This conceptualization can be widely observed regarding information society, a closely related but wider concept.
Second, there are numerous characterization of the transformations some of the contemporary economies are going through. Service economy, high-tech economy, late-capitalism, post-fordism, and global economy are among the most frequently used terms, having some overlaps and contradictions among themselves. The more closer terms to information economy would include knowledge economy and post-industrial economy.
One can also contend that the term "information" is not a clearly defined concept when applied to economic and social matters.
One's choice of conceptualizing the contemporary economy is also related to the expectations and policy and political imperatives that s/he has.
In the following, this issue is roughly divided into three areas: production, consumption, and transaction of information. Each section deals with the economic changes pointed out by some, as well as their consequences for our economy and society.
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2 Consumption of Information 3 Transaction of Information |
Production of information goods and services are said to be increased over the last decades. Production of Information