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This introduction explores the conceptual background and definitions that pertain to understanding standards and standardization in the context of innovation. A general overview is provided of the themes explored in the chapters that follow.

The core instrument of input-output analysis is a matrix of technical coefficients. This input-output matrix orders national accounts by interconnecting the use and make statistics of the different sectors, traces indirect economic effects or multipliers, and is used to map environmental impacts or footprints. At all levels there are issues of its dimension, not only size but also type - commodities or industries - and resolution of these issues requires that statisticians, economists (applied and theoretical), and policy analysts (including environmental) familiarize themselves with each other's work. All contribute various chapters of the handbook and these are interrelated in this introductory chapter.

In the Internet economy many of the theoretical assumptions and historical observations upon which economics rests need to be reexamined. Economics built a very successful research program by focusing on the choices and behavior of rational individual decision-makers under conditions of scarcity. In this highly stylized framework, eventually increasing incremental costs, decreasing marginal utility and resource constraints result in negative feedback that moves economic processes toward equilibrium states. The rigorous analysis of these equilibria at the micro and macro level was a major achievement of economics. In an economy built around digital technology some of these conditions change fundamentally. Scale economies, interdependencies, and abundance are pervasive and call for analytical concepts that augment the traditional approaches.