ABSTRACT
The knowledge economy is generally invoked as the key to progress, development and prosperity. Since the work of Schumpeter (1934; 1942), knowledge production and innovation have been identified as distinctive features of market economies, crucial to overcome societal inertia and, as later recognized by Abramovitz's (1959) and Solow's (1960) seminal contributions, more relevant than capital accumulation to explain growth. A recent strand of research has, however, emphasized that the present institutions of the knowledge economy, far from being infallible engines of economic growth, embody features that may lead to their own demise, resulting in stagnant growth.
