High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The knowledge economy is a term that refers either to an economy of knowledge focused on the production and management of knowledge in the frame of economic constraints, or to a knowledge-based economy. In the second meaning, more frequently used, it refers to the use of knowledge technologies (such as knowledge engineering and knowledge management) to produce economic benefits. The phrase was popularized if not invented by Peter Drucker as the title of Chapter 12 in his book The Age of Discontinuity.The essential difference is that in a knowledge economy, knowledge is a product, in knowledge- based economy, knowledge is a tool. This difference is not yet well distinguished in the subject matter literature. They both are strongly interdisciplinary, involving economists, computer scientists, software engineers, mathematicians, chemists, physicists, as well as cognitivists, psychologists and sociologists.Various observers describe today'sglobal economy as one in transition to a "knowledge economy", as an extension of an "information society".