Measuring the Knowledge Base of an Economy in terms of Triple-Helix Relations among 'Technology, Organization, and Territory'

TL;DR

This study introduces a probabilistic entropy measure based on the triple-helix model to quantify the knowledge base of an economy, using Dutch company data across different regional levels.

Contribution

It develops a novel indicator combining regional economics and the triple-helix model to measure economic knowledge configurations through mutual information.

Findings

Medium-tech sectors contribute more to the knowledge base than high-tech sectors.

Knowledge-intensive services tend to uncouple the system, especially at lower technology levels.

The indicator effectively captures regional differences in knowledge configurations.

Abstract

Can the knowledge base of an economy be measured? In this study, we combine the perspective of regional economics on the interrelationships among technology, organization, and territory with the triple-helix model, and offer the mutual information in three dimensions as an indicator of the configuration. When this probabilistic entropy is negative, the configuration reduces the uncertainty that prevails at the systems level. Data about more than a million Dutch companies are used for testing the indicator. The data contain postal codes (geography), sector codes (proxy for technology), and firm sizes in terms of number of employees (proxy for organization). The configurations are mapped at three levels: national (NUTS-1), provincial (NUTS-2), and regional (NUTS-3). The levels are cross-tabled with the knowledge-intensive sectors and services. The results suggest that medium-tech sectors contribute to the knowledge base of an economy more than high-tech ones. Knowledge-intensive services have an uncoupling effect, but less so at the high-tech end of these services.