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Information economy is a defined term that an economy with an increased emphasis on informational activities and information industry.
The vagueness of the term has three 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 "increases" in informational activities, rather than the level it has achieved. It is rare to see research seriously discussing whether a certain level of "informatization" in an economy is enough to label it as information economy.
Second, there are many different kinds of measurements of information-related economic indicators that are used by researchers. Unlike 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.[citation needed] 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 one has.
Also, see The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker(1966) Drucker describes the manual worker (page 2) that works with his hands and produces "stuff". The knowledge worker (page 3) works with his head and produces ideas, knowledge, and information.
Related Terms Digital revolution, Digital economy, Electronic business, Electronic commerce, Information highway, Information Market, Information Revolution, Information society, Intellectual property, Internet Economy, Creative industry, Knowledge economy, Knowledge market, Knowledge policy, Knowledge services, Social networking, Virtual economy
(Additional Reading)
Boyett, Joseph H. And Jimmie T. Boyett. 2001. The Guru Guide to the Knowledge Economy. John Wiley& Sons. John Wiley & Sons
Cozel, Diane. 1997. The Weightless World. MIT Press. Evans, Philip B. and Thomas S. Wurster. 2000. Blown to Bits. Harvard Business School Press.
Mcgee, James and Lawrence Prusak. 1993. Managing Information Strategically. Random House
Negroponte, Nicholas. 1996. Being Digital.
Rayport, Jeffrey F. and John J. Sviokla. 1995. Exploiting the Virtual Value Chain. in: Harvard Business Review (no. 1995)
Rifkin, Jeremy. 2000. The Age of Access. Penguin Putnam.
Schwartz, Evan I. 1999. Digital Darwinism. Broadway Books.
Shapiro, Carl and Hal R. Varian. 1999. Harvard Business School Press.
Tapscott, Donald. 1996. The Digital Economy. McGraw-Hill.