ABSTRACT
What’s next in economics? New realities, or, perhaps, a paradigm shift, emerged most publicly as the “new economy”. The term, now irretrievably bound up with the so-called dot.com revolution, lost credibility after the end of 2000 and the dot.com bubble burst. But the dot.bomb debris did not cover all dimensions of the new economy. Despite collateral damage, conceptualisations of a different kind of economy survive in its aftermath. Low and Kalafut’s (2002) Invisible Advantage: How Intangibles Are Driving Business Performance cites former CEO of Citicorp Walter Wriston’s insight into the crux of the issue:
Postindustrial enterprises run on intangible assets, such as information, research, development, brand equity, capacity for innovation, and human resources. Yet none of these intangible assets appear on a balance sheet. This is another way of saying that, according to today’s accounting practices, the worth of a brand name like Citibank or Ford has no value.
