In an agricultural economy, land is the key resource. In an industrial economy, it is physical assets such as steel, factories, and railroads that are the dominant factors of production. In the current era, the key resources have become information and knowledge. The generation and exploitation of knowledge is now the predominant factor in the creation of wealth. For countries in the vanguard of the world economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted so far towards the former that knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the standard of living – more than land, than tools, than labour. Today’s most technologically advanced economies are truly knowledge-based.