The transition from a fossil-fuel economy to a knowledge economy

Roger Fouquet and Ralph Hippe

The purpose of this chapter is to show that economic growth in history was driven by the development of energy markets (and boosted by energy transitions), particularly between the eighteenth century and 1973, and by the development of information, human capital and knowledge (and related transitions), which has also been underway for a long time but is becoming more dominant today. Thus, there has been a very long-run shift from energy resources to knowledge as a fundamental driver of economic growth.

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