THE USEFUL APPLICATION OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INTRODUCTION

The understanding of knowledge as an emergent system property has guided the radical re-organization of the specialization of advanced countries since the end of the 20th century. Advanced economies facing the twin globalization of product and capital markets have learnt how to take advantage of the endogenous regeneration of knowledge externalities by focusing on the role of knowledge as the basis of their participation in the international division of labor. Advanced economies experienced at the end of the 19th century, the twin introduction of a radical technological change centered on the gale of information and communication technologies and a major structural change based on the emergence of the knowledge-intensive business service sector coupled with a drastic reorganization of the manufacturing industry centered on knowledge-intensive technologies. The shift from the manufacturing to the knowledge economy implies the increasing centrality of the role of knowledge as a final product, a capital good and an intermediary input. Advanced economies not only specialize in the production of knowledge-intensive services, but, within their economic systems, skilled labor substitutes blue-collar labor as much as intangible investments complement tangible ones.