Knowledge and its Economic Characteristics - A Conceptual Clarification

Ulrich Witt, Tom Broekel () and Thomas Brenner ()

No 2007-013, Jena Economics Research Papers from Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena

Abstract: This paper discusses several features of knowledge that are often considered crucial for characterizing the economic significance of knowledge: whether it is overtly accessible or tacit, whether it can be or is encoded or not, and whether it has public or private good character. It is argued that all these features depend similarly on the state of the knowledge technology, i.e. on how knowledge can be acquired, stored, used, and communicated. The different characteristics and the relationships between them are shown to correspond to different specifications of the technology, specifications that are not always made explicit in the literature.

Keywords: knowledge; knowledge technology; tacitness; ouvertness; public goods; intellectual property rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D83 O31 O34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-05-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino, nep-ipr, nep-pr~, nep-knm and nep-tid
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Chapter: Knowledge and its Economic Characteristics: A Conceptual Clarification (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jrp:jrpwrp:2007-013

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