Knowledge, skill, and education in the new global economy

This paper deals with three main topics. The first is the nature of post-industrial, service-based economies in which human capital has special importance. In the new global economy, sharp distinctions between services and goods become more difficult to draw, as exemplified by computer software, perhaps the purest embodiment so far of a knowledge-based industry in which human and organizational capital account for nearly all value added. Where does this intangible capital come from? That is the subject of the second section of the paper, which discusses the meanings attached to knowledge, skill and other components of human capital, sketching out a view emphasizing tacit know-how and the lessons of experience. This sets the stage for a third section outlining a number of implications for higher education. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.