著者

田村 大樹

出版者

産業学会

雑誌

産業学会研究年報 (ISSN:09187162)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1997, no.12, pp.37-50,117, 1997-03-30 (Released:2009-10-08)

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How does tertiary industry relate to the phenomenon, called ‘hollowing out’ of industry? This article aims to clarify this relation, in which, at first sight, we can't see any direct link. If hollowing out is specific to the manufacturing industry, then tertiary industry cannot play any role there. But, some economic activities such as finance, distribution or software production, which are ordinarily included in the tertiary industry, are also being hollowed out from Japan.In the beginning, we try to subdivide tertiary industries into rational categories, giving us three new groups of activities, i. e. ‘service’ in a narrow sense, ‘information intermediation’ and ‘space overcoming’. These subcategories give us clear-cut insight about the service economy. Tertiarization of the economy, which is usually described as a statistical reality, is not a service related phenomenon but an information related one. In this process, Information intermediation activities have had more important roles than service activities.In Japan, the problem of hollowing out has arisen over the last few years. On the other hand, the issue of an information society has been argued about for three decades. We must therefore introduce a new point of view to realize that the hollowing out has its origin in the advancement of information technology. We think many recent social changes have stemmed from the coming of a new phase of the information society. It is characterized by densely woven computer networks. In our perspective, these networks mean that the order of spatial information flow has changed. In another words, the logic of space overcoming activity governing information flow has been replaced by the new one of light speed.In general, contents of spatial flow consist of material, human and information. Liquidity of information flow is highest and that of human flow is lowest. The recent expansion of networks make information flows smoother. We can say that, in information terms, national boundaries are disappearing. We conclude that the hollowing out of economic activities are caused by expanding information networks, which enhance information intermediation through improvement of space overcoming ability of information.