The nature of economic development may have changed significantly in high-income countries, with a new emphasis on services, quality, and information. Such development is hard to measure in material terms. Many writers refer to dematerialization and the emergence of the knowledge-based economy. As a result, scenarios can span from low dematerialization to high dematerialization futures associated with a wide range of income levels. In the former, the shift toward more value-added products in industry would be compensated by rising labor productivity and hence lower product costs.
Economic production remains material oriented.
In the latter, much of the money flow would be associated with exchange of information and services. Educational, childcare, and medical services would make up a large part of personal expenditures. Already, all kinds of artistic and handicraft work have become part of the formal monetary economy, partly because of the booming world tourist industry. Therefore, the task of future scenario development entails more than just the adoption of alternative quantitative assumptions. The overall context within which alternative assumptions on productivity growth or energy and materials intensity take place needs to be made explicit.