The Economics of Science: A Critical Realist Overview

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THE KNOWLEDGE-BASEDBIO-ECONOMY

Knowledge and nature as sourcesof value?

2.1 What is the KB(B)E?

A major, if not the overwhelming, motivation for the surge in interest in an ‘economics of science’ since the late 1990s has been the seeming emergence of a new economy in which knowledge, including science, is assuming pre-eminent importance. A central question for an economics of science is thus: ‘what is the knowledge-based economy (KBE)?’

First, the KBE refers to what appears to be a number of secular trends in the organisation of economic activity towards (Powell and Snellman 2004): increasing economic resources devoted to knowledge production; increasingly science-intensive innovation; a qualitative shift in the distribution of knowledge production ...