Summary

This article discusses the development of the concept of “knowledge economy” and the totality of its infrastructure components. Based on a comparison of the components of the infrastructures of the “innovative economy” and “knowledge economy”, the degree of interoperability of these concepts is established. The content of the components “education” of the knowledge economy and the content of the components “intellectual capital”, “information sector” and “network structures”, which are both part of the infrastructure of the knowledge economy and the infrastructure of the innovation economy, are considered.

In the last period, there is a growing understanding throughout the world that a substantial reform of the existing economic system is necessary, which is associated with the need to neutralize the threats posed by frequent economic crises, as well as threats associated with environmental pollution, climate change, and the depletion of a number of major non-renewable natural resources, waste accumulation, etc. Therefore, the whole world, and especially in developed countries, is the gradual formation of "alternative" economies, first of all, the innovation economy, "green" economy and circular (reusable) economies. At the same time, scientists pay great attention to the development of a “knowledge economy”, an “information society” (information economy), and a global network economy. As you know, the main trend in developed countries is the construction of an innovative economy, for which the mechanisms of state and market (business) coordination are mainly developed. Recently, along with the theory of innovative economics, in particular, the theory of the knowledge economy has been developing. Therefore, in this paper we tried to identify the essence of the knowledge economy and by comparing the totality of the components of the structure of the innovation economy and the totality of the components of the structure of the knowledge economy, establish the degree of compatibility of these concepts. The paper also discloses a modern interpretation of the content of such a component of the knowledge economy as “education” and the content of such most important components (included in both the structure of the knowledge economy and the structure of the innovative economy) as “intellectual capital”, “information sector of the economy” and “network structures". We do not imagine these components as separate economies, but as constituent elements in the systems of the knowledge economy and the innovation economy.

From an analysis of the definitions of the concept of “knowledge economy” and further research logic, we came to the conclusion that the modern definition of this concept should be as follows: The knowledge economy is an economy concentrated in intellectual capital (human, organizational and relationship capital), the education system, and the information environment, network structures and, most importantly, innovative systems that use appropriate financial resources.

The work also defines the place of the knowledge economy in the system of modern economies. Based on a comparison of the totality of the infrastructure components of the systems of the innovation economy and the knowledge economy, we came to the conclusion that the concepts of “knowledge economy” and “innovative economy” are, if not synonyms, then very similar in content - they differ only in the “education” component, which is one of the key components of the knowledge economy, however, it is not formally included in the system of an innovative economy. In our opinion, such concepts as “information economy”, “intellectual economy” and “network economy” are not synonyms of the knowledge economy and innovative economy, but enter into them as structural components called “intellectual capital”, “information sector of the economy” and “network structures” (which is discussed in many other publications cited in this paper). The content of these concepts is disclosed in detail in the last four sections of the paper.