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

The interrelationships among technology, organization, and territory in an economic system have been considered as a 'holy trinity' from the perspective of regional development studies. The mutual information in three dimensions was proposed as an indicator of the surplus value (entropy) in triple-helix configurations. 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 were used for testing this indicator. This data contain postal codes (geography), sector codes (proxy of technology), and firm sizes in terms of number of employees (proxy of organization). The knowledge base is mapped at three levels: national (NUTS-1), provincial (NUTS-2), and regional (NUTS-3). The levels can be 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.