ABSTRACT
On the 17 November 1997, Business Week heralded the emergence of ‘The New Economy’ in the USA. The term has since been used in both the mass media and business journals worldwide to signal the widespread use of microelectronics and computer-based networks as information and communication technologies (ICT) that have enabled knowledge to become the ‘key’ economic engine. The ‘. . . new intangible features of international transactions appear to form the essence of what “The New Economy” is all about’ (Soete 1999: 3). Evidence from traditional trade and foreign direct investment flow data show no increase in globalization, yet, in terms of the internationalization of information and knowledge the level of intangible transactions that do not show up in balance of payments has grown exceptionally strongly (Soete 1999: 6-12). These intangibles stretch across the domains of purely financial to exchange and co-operation of information and knowledge (scientific, business, media). Thurow (1999) calls these developments the third industrial revolution.
