Measuring the Knowledge Base of Regional Innovation Systems in Germany in terms of a Triple Helix Dynamics

While a market economy seeks equilibrium, a knowledge-based economy may upset this tendency towards stabilization by adding the feedback of globalization. The interaction among the three subdynamics of economic exchange, technological innovation, and institutional control can be captured with a generalized Triple Helix model. We propose to use the mutual information as an indicator of integration among the three subdynamics at the systems level. This probabilistic entropy can be positive or negative. On the basis of data at the district level in Germany the conclusions of a previous study about the Netherlands are tested: medium-tech manufacturing is the main driver of a knowledge-based configuration in a regional economy, while knowledge-intensive services tend to uncouple the economy from the regional configuration. At the level of regions (NUTS-2) the knowledge-based economy is no longer structured by the previous East-West divide of the country, while this divide has remained the main structure at the level of the states (NUTS-1) which constitute the Federal Republic.