It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Information society, Information revolution, Information market, Knowledge society, Knowledge market and Knowledge economy (Discuss)

Information economy is a defined term that an economy with an increased emphasis on informational activities and information industry. The ASCII codes for the word Wikipedia represented in binary, the numeral system most commonly used for encoding computer information. ... Information industry or information industries is a loosely defined term for industries that are information intensive in one way or the other. ...

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. Manuel Castells (full Spanish name: Manuel Castells Oliván[1]; born 1942 in Hellín, Albacete, Spain) is a sociologist, particularly associated with research into the information society and communications. ... For other uses, see Information society (disambiguation). ...

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. Service economy can refer to one or both of two recent economic developments. ... Late capitalism is a term sometimes used to refer to capitalism of the second half of the 20th century, generally with the implication that it is historically limited, and will eventually end. ... Post-fordism is the mode of production increasingly found in most industrialized countries today, which can be contrasted with fordism, the productive method typified by Henry Fords car plants, in which workers work on a production line, performing specialised tasks repetetively. ... The world economy can be represented various ways, and broken down in various ways. ... A knowledge economy is either economy of knowledge focused on the economy of the producing and management of knowledge, or a knowledge-based economy. ... A post industrial country is a nation that is industrialized and is in the de-industrialization phase. ...

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.

See also

• precarity
• Internet Economy

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. // Precarity refers to labor performed in absence of either predictability or security, thus affecting social and psychological welfare. ... The Internet Economy refers to conducting business through markets whose infrastructure is based on the Internet and World-Wide Web. ...

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 This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... A digital economy is an economy that is based on electronic goods and services produced by an electronic business and traded through electronic commerce. ... Electronic Business, or E-business, may be defined broadly as any business process that relies on an automated information system. ... Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. ... The adolescent Internet. ... Although information has been bought and sold since ancient times, the idea of an information marketplace is relatively recent. ... The information revolution is one of the theoretical frameworks within which trends in current society can be conceptualized. ... For other uses, see Information society (disambiguation). ... For the 2006 film, see Intellectual Property (film). ... The Internet Economy refers to conducting business through markets whose infrastructure is based on the Internet and World-Wide Web. ... A knowledge economy is either economy of knowledge focused on the economy of the producing and management of knowledge, or a knowledge-based economy. ... Knowledge market is a mechanism for distributing knowledge resources. ... A social network is a map of the relationships between individuals, indicating the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. ... A virtual economy (or sometimes synthetic economy) is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually in the context of an Internet game. ...

References

(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.