Globalization and the Knowledge-Driven Economy

The study implements the Schumpeterian notion of creative reaction to articulate and test the hypothesis that the shift to the knowledge economy in advanced economies is the result of the creative reaction of firms, caught in out-of-equilibrium conditions by the fast globalization of product and factor markets since the last decade of the 20th century. Advanced countries specialized in the generation and exploitation of knowledge because of its relative abundance stemming from their sophisticated knowledge governance mechanisms and the large stock of knowledge. In turn, this had strong positive effects on total factor productivity. The empirical analysis confirms that in advanced economies the specialization in knowledge-based activities substituted for the previous specialization in mass manufacturing activities supporting the increase of total factor productivity. The new specialization in knowledge-intensive activities has been stronger in cases where patent activities have been more intense and the exposure to international trade and the revenue per capita have been larger.