On the Life Cycle of Knowledge Intensive Sectors

The theme of industry life cycle (ILC) is today one of the central fields of research in industrial dynamics. ILC shows that industries behave like biological organisms, and proceed through different phases of development, from emergence to decline. Although this approach constitutes one of the most important recent advances in industrial dynamics, its major results are drawn from the historical evolution of industries that emerged during the first half of the 20th century in the US. In this perspective, we stress that these results relative to industries which are today mature industries are not necessarily generalisable to the evolution of industries that emerged (or radically changed) during the late 20th century, such as the biotechnology and the telecommunications industry that are often termed as knowledge intensive industries. We thus elaborate on the new theme of knowledge intensive industry life cycle. JEL Classification: L20, L65, L96.