Information economics: research strategies

Reviews past and present research into the role of information as a public good and states that progress in thinking has not kept pace with events that led the New York Times to label the 1980s as "when information accelerated". Argues that a new perspective on the role of information in the changing extent and pattern of economic growth might be achieved by combining several elements from recent analytical efforts including information as a factor of production, a taxonomy of information, and a broader conceptualization of infrastructure so that it includes institutions and has a focus on competence, both individual and in the learning organization. Warns of a resurgence of Luddism, fuelled by unemployment, in the form of an anti-change stance which questions whether so much growing inequality is needed to achieve the magical productivity said to give everyone bigger incomes and a better life.