[OPE-L] snippet on GDP and the information economy

[Jurriaan Bendien <adsl675281@xxxxxxxxxx>]

In 1960, nearly a third of the [UK] domestic output was from manufacturing activities and 58 percent from services. Today, less than one-fifth of the [UK] GDP is from manufacturing and close to three-quarters from services. Not only is the share of services in the economy growing, but also what is left of manufacturing is becoming infused with information. (...) By one estimate [from a study conducted at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, quoted in Thomas A. Stewart, Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations. Doubleday, New York, 1997], three-fourths of the value-added in manufacturing is information. Whereas in the old economy we bought and sold "congealed resources," in the new economy we trade "congealed knowledge." http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3766/is_200101/ai_n8942853

I am not sure about the estimation procedure, but the point is that by the time the net output of 75% of manufacturing consists of information, there is something drastically wrong with our industry classification scheme :-)

 

Jurriaan