Quantifying the Digital Economy: Between Reality and Design

Abstract

The term «digital economy» was introduced to the academic literature over 20 years ago and many governments adopted their national programs to develop digital economy proclaimed a new driver of global economic growth. However, the concept still has neither a clear definition, nor a single methodology for quantifying the digital economy as a statistical aggregate, which raises the issue of the real scope of this phenomenon. The authors believe that the digital economy is just a new business model and an ambitious global project of social and technological modernization of society at the intersection of political discourse and reality. This project has not yet materialized in the economy and exists as a constructed object of knowledge, statistical and forecast manipulation. The paper reviews the evolution of various concepts employed to define the digital economy and methods of its statistical quantification. The authors show that such methods have changed considerably depending on the economic environment. However, their main goal was to use any means (often at the expense of objectivity) in order to elaborate such a definition of the digital economy, which is gradually expanding to the level of almost entire economy, and to assess its scale in such a way as to continuously demonstrate high dynamics and accelerated growth rates.