The knowledge-based economy: technological model and structural change

Abstract

Massive incorporation of information and communications technology (ICT) into economic activities, the effects of the process of economic globalisation and changing patterns of family consumption form the basis of a significant process of economic change, which we could characterize as a change towards a knowledge-based economy. The Spanish economy is not unaffected by this multidimensional phenomenon which, from an aggregate point of view, entails significant changes in the principle elements of the macroeconomy, like economic growth, inflation and unemployment. This study looks, from different angles, both empirical and international, at the development of the knowledge-based economy in Spain. For this, two of the key aspects of the new economy are analysed: its technological development, in other words the penetration of digital technologies in the activities of the prime movers of the economy, and its structural evolution, in other words the economic growth of the sector at the centre of this process of change, the ICT sector.