However, both economic and social losers could result from the globalization process. The financial instability during 1998 has cast further doubt on the inevitability of global convergence as a standard model of political economy. Hence, a further important dimension of uncertainty to be explored in the scenarios is the degree of globalization or regionalization in economic, social, and technological development. 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.