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The Incidence and Transfer of Knowledge Within the Arab Societies

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Abstract

In this paper, we use the systematic, descriptive, and statistical approaches; fill the gap in the Arab literature; and examine the incidence and transfer of knowledge in the Arab countries. Our findings support the first hypothesis that the components of knowledge show positive correlation with economic growth and hence can be used to enhance economic growth and promote human capital in the Arab countries. Our results corroborate the second and third hypotheses that the incidence and transfer of knowledge can be enhanced by institutional support in the form of subsidies and incentives to knowledge components (education, R&D, and ICT). The major policy implication from our findings is that the Arab countries should stimulate local efforts and incentives for building and transferring knowledge and should pay more attention to enhance and support the institutions for the creation and transfer of knowledge and for building the knowledge economy in the Arab countries.

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Notes

  1. The Arab region is composed of 22 countries, including Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman Occupied Palestine Territories, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. According to the World Bank classification, the Arab high-income group includes only four countries: UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, and Bahrain. Arab medium-income group includes 13 countries: Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Occupied Palestine Territories, and Djibouti. Arab low-income group includes five countries: Sudan, Somalia, Yemen, Comoros, and Mauritania. Several studies in the literature use different classifications of Arab countries for instance according to the structure of the economy (cf. [43, 44]) and/or the geographical location in Asia and Africa (cf. UNESCO, 2004) in the Gulf or Mediterranean (cf. [45, 46]). In addition, we use the classification of Arab countries according to geographical location: the Mediterranean and Gulf. The Arab Mediterranean includes eight Arab countries: Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, and Tunisia, and the Arab Gulf includes six Arab countries: Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business and Economics, University of Maastricht, UNU-MERIT, Keizer Karelplein 19, 6211 TC, Maastricht, the Netherlands

    Samia Satti Osman Mohamed Nour

  2. Economics Department, Faculty of Economic and Social Studies, Khartoum University, P.O.B 321, Khartoum, 11115, Sudan

    Samia Satti Osman Mohamed Nour

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Correspondence to Samia Satti Osman Mohamed Nour.

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The first draft of this paper was originally prepared for the Danish Research Unit for Industrial Dynamics (DRUID) Summer Conference 2006. All the usual disclaimers apply.

This paper is a summary and a reworked and revised version of the working paper published with the title ‘The incidence and transfer of knowledge in the Arab countries” UNUMERIT Working Paper 2010-064, Maastricht, the Netherlands, December 2010. The research work presented in this paper is based on a research project supported by a grant offered by the Global Development Network (GDN) Fourth Round Regional Research Grant Competition administered by the Economic Research Forum for the Arab Countries, Iran and Turkey (ERF) in collaboration with Global Development Network (GDN) and a grant offered by the Middle East Research Grant Competition (MERC) (2003–2004) administered by the Center for the Study of Developing Countries (CICS), Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, in collaboration with Ford Foundation. The author gratefully acknowledges the ERF, GDN, MERC, and Ford Foundation for the research grants. The revised version of this paper was presented at the ERF-GDN Final Workshop of Grantees Projects of ERF-GDN, the ERF 13th Annual Conference (2006) on "Oil: Its Impacts on the Global Economy", the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, Kuwait, December 15–18, 2006. The first version of this paper was originally presented at the ERF-GDN First Workshop of Grantees Projects of ERF-GDN, the ERF 12th Annual Conference (2005) on “Institutionalizing Reform.” , Cairo, Egypt, December 19–21, 2005, and the MERC First Conference Workshop of Scholar’s Grantees Projects of MERC, the Center for the Study of Developing Countries (CICS), Faculty of Economics and Political Science, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt, December 12–18, 2003. The first draft of this paper was originally prepared for presentation at the DRUID Summer conference 2006 on Knowledge, Innovation and Competitiveness: Dynamics of Firms, Network, Regions and Institutions, Copenhagen Business School (CBS), Copenhagen, Denmark, June 18–20, 2006. The conference is organized in co-operation with European Union Sixth Framework programme Network of Excellence: DIME - Dynamics of Institutions and Markets in Europe. The author would like to thank the participants for their useful comments on this paper. The author would like to gratefully thank Dr. Elias G. Carayannis, Editor-in-Chief of this journal, for his very helpful and kind cooperation. All the usual disclaimers apply.

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Nour, S.S.O.M. The Incidence and Transfer of Knowledge Within the Arab Societies. J Knowl Econ 4, 406–422 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13132-011-0082-3

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