The incidence and transfer of knowledge in the Arab countries
Samia S. O. M. Nour
#2010-064
In this paper we use the systematic, descriptive and statistical
approaches, fill the gap in the Arab literature and present a more
comprehensive analysis of the important ways of enhancing the incidence
and transfer of knowledge in the Arab countries. Different from the
conventional view in the literature that use the conventional
classification of countries according to income level, an interesting
element in our analysis is that we use a more comprehensive
classification not only by income level but also by geographic location
and the structure of the economy to examine the important ways of
enhancing the incidence and transfer of knowledge in the Arab countries.
We find that somewhat surprising the classification of Arab countries by
income level provides inconclusive evidences in terms of capacity to
create knowledge. 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 in order to benefit from
integration in global knowledge economy the Arab countries should create
the most appropriate political, economic, educational, technological and
scientific institutions. The Arab countries should stimulate local
efforts and incentives for building and transferring knowledge and
should pay more attention to enhance institutions setting, especially,
effective system of intellectual property rights protection to motivate
the creation and transfer of knowledge. Apart from the role of Arab
governments, it is essential for Arab societies to support the culture
aimed at fostering and enhancing the incidence and transfer of
knowledge.
Keywords: Tacit Knowledge, Codified Knowledge, Transfer of Knowledge,
Arab countries
JEL classification: O10, O11, O30