A New Outlook on Development of Knowledge Economy: Evidence from the Changed Distribution of Sectors of Knowledge Economy

• Published in: Journal of the knowledge economy Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 7542 - 7567
• Main Authors: Jin, Jong-Chol, Ri, Jong-Min, Kim, Hong-Il, Ri, Kwang-Son, Kang, Chun-Sik
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.06.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Agglomeration; Economic crisis; Economic factors; Economic growth; Economic Policy; Economics; Economics and Finance; Entrepreneurship; Knowledge economy; Local economy; R & D/Technology Policy; Regions; Sustainability; Regional distribution; Expansion period; Development of knowledge economy (DKE); Urban regions; Recession period; Sector’s distribution
• ISSN: 1868-7873; 1868-7865; 1868-7873
• DOI: 10.1007/s13132-023-01283-z

Over th e past decades, the rise and growth of knowledge-based economy (KE) have become central to the development of global and local economies. However, the crisis in 2008 and the subsequent major restructuring process in sector’s and regional distribution of the KE require that we rebuild our understanding of “development of knowledge-based economy (DKE)”. The important issues in having a new outlook on DKE are to explain the concept of DKE, the forms of expression of DKE, the profile of DKE, the orientation of DKE, and the relations between the regions and the sectors of KE (SKE). The authors intend to achieve the aim of the study by focusing on the relationship between the SKE and regions during a period of expansion (2000–2007) and a period of recession (2007–2015). First of all, the paper presented the theoretical studies of the key concepts of KE and DKE. Besides, by means of clustering based on the data (2000–2007–2015), the sequence of regional clustering and the components of the stage clusters were used for determining the profile of DKE and the orientation of DKE respectively. Next, the DKE that has changed in response to unfavorable economic environment such as crisis was analyzed and assessed on the assessment of the regional relationship between SKE and their regional distribution. In conclusion, KE is more resilient to crisis than agglomeration economies, and it is reconstructed from a complex combination of agglomeration economies, amenities, and proximity to the metropolitan multicores. Also, the right combination of micro-economic factors (functions, amenities, proximity) and the characteristics (sharing force, matching force, and learning force or their well combinations) of agglomeration economies affect the profile and the orientation of DKE. Otherwise, DKE is expressed that the SKE are expanding from the capital to the second- or medium-sized cities, close to the historic administration centers (HACs), forming the profile of DKE in the method of forming new employment centers (NECs) in rest small towns. Next, due to the regional relevance of SKE and agglomeration economies, the sectors of knowledge-intensive business service (KIBS) and other knowledge service (OKS) still achieve sustainable DKE before and after the economic crisis. Future study should consider the changes in policy and use rich analysis data to consider the impact of DKE and its regional distribution.