The Geography of the New Economy

As discussions of the New Economy become increasingly common, it is also clear that there the term requires some clarification. There’s a macroeconomic version, able to keep on growing rapidly without inflation, and there’s a microeconomic version, apparently driven by a new kind of firm. There’s the digital version, likely to be identified with an Information Age. Then there are variants that focus on management, labor relations, sustainable development, and other topics as well. What most new-economy approaches have in common is the idea that computers and in particular networked PCs have changed things in a fundamental way. That is the common denominator we will encounter as we look at the macro, micro, and digital versions of the new economy hypothesis in turn.