There's a lot of new concepts brought into 5150 NB that carry over into the Known Space book. 5150 NB introduces an abstract economic system based on Lifetime d6 rep. It basically tracks your level of relative wealth, and based on that what your Star is likely to have access to.
Then this system carries over in Known Space to let you trade and speculate on cargo, and with the star system generation rules every planet will be different and have a different core economy - Basic, Mining, Farming, etc., which effects your trade value. So now when you create a planet, either by dice roll or counter pull, it tells you - Ring/Sector/System/Planet Class/POP/Economy/LAW level.
So here's the listing for New Hope, the starting adventure planet for 5150:
Example: New Hope (3/4/2/2/2/T/2) is located in the 3rd Ring (*), 4th Sector, 2nd System, and is a Class 2 Planet with POP 2, Economy T (Trade) and LAW 2.
*Note that there is some dispute that New Hope is actually located in the 4th Ring, specifically in Xeog controlled space.

Oh, here's a snapshot of the wealth tracker:
