Economic Growth from a Theoretical Perspective of Knowledge Economy: An Empirical Analysis for Mexico

This paper analyzes some theoretical aspects of the knowledge economy and measures the effects of the knowledge factor on Mexico’s economic performance over the two past decades. We propose specific indicators to measure the activities of production, acquisition, diffusion, and application of knowledge and verifying their relationship to the GDP per capita through a co-integration econometric model. The overall results agree with the economic theory, since the global knowledge economy indicator is positive and significant. Analyzing the activities individually we found that production and application performed as expected; whereas the values found for acquisition and diffusion are not significant. The amount of knowledge generated in the world increases constantly so that the acquisition of this production cannot keep pace and the capabilities of Mexico to implement knowledge are lagging behind. The acquisition of knowledge has different unregistered elements, such as the informal acquisition, the different qualities of the acquired knowledge and the characteristics of who acquires the knowledge. Perhaps, the most complex indicator is the diffusion of knowledge, which mainly occurs through invisible channels, from person to person, linking tacit knowledge, this phenomenon is hard to quantify.