A predictive model and socioeconomic and demographic determinants of under-five mortality in Sierra Leone.

Sierra Leone is among the countries that recorded high under-five child mortality rate in the world. To design and implement policies that can address this public health challenge, the present study developed a predictive model of factors that explained under-five mortality in Sierra Leone using the 2008 and 2013 Sierra Leone Demographic and Health Survey (SDHS) datasets. LASSO regression technique was used to select the predictors to build the under-five predictive single-level logit and multilevel logit models. Statistical analyses were performed in the R freeware version 3.6.1. About 588 (10.4%) and 1320 (11.1%) children under five were reported dead in 2008 and 2013, respectively. The significant predictors of under-five mortality in Sierra Leone were the total number of children ever born, number of children under five in the household, mother's birth in the last five years, mother's number of living children, and number of household members, household wealth, maternal contraceptive use and intention, number of eligible women in the household, type of toilet facility, sex of the child, and weight of the child at birth. The study identified certain predictors that deserve policy attention and interventions to strengthen the efforts of creating child welfare and survival atmosphere in Sierra Leone

Factors influencing the potential of European Higher Education Institutions to contribute to innovation and regional development

This Science for Policy Report analyses the main factors influencing the potential of Higher Education Institutions to contribute to innovation and regional development. The analysis is structured around two groups of factors: The supply of knowledge and skills through education, research and external engagement, and the demand side concerning the ability of regional actors to absorb it. The report draws on both qualitative and quantitative data, including two sets of case studies from JRC projects related to the regional impact of universities and the role of HEIs in Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3), as well as a recent econometric study that compares flows of human capital and knowledge from HEIs with firm location. The report is part of the Commission's Knowledge Hub for Higher Education at the JRC which brings together a number of tools including University Multi Rank, from which data is analysed in this report.JRC.B.3-Territorial Developmen

The 'Bad Behavior Index': A Composite Measure of the Development Hindering Behavior of Individuals and Institutions

Composite indices have become a popular tool for providing a quantitative, simplified, and visualized representation of complex phenomena. An example of such is the Human Development Index (HDI) which ranks countries by their level of development. The primary limitation of the HDI is its narrow scope, which hinders its effectiveness at explaining why some nations are more developed than others. The discussion as to why some nations are more developed than others goes back as far as the 14th century, where Ibn Khaldun developed a theory which aims to explain why civilizations rise and fall. Some of the hypotheses which seek to answer this question point to the importance of economic freedoms, absence of corruption, high investment in human capital, and the importance of institutions etc. to development. One hypothesis which has not been properly studied regards the culpability of individual and institutional behavior. The purpose of this study is to introduce a composite measure of the development hindering behavior of individuals and institutions, i.e., the Bad Behavior Index (BBI). The methodology of this study is influenced by the Mazziotta & Pareto framework for composite indices. The index weights have been computed by integrating expert opinion with the Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP). The findings of this study suggest that African countries engage in the highest level of bad behavior, which subsequently leads to their poor socio-economic development, whereas Northern countries engage in the least level of bad behavior. The study also finds that the most important drivers for socio-economic development are low levels of corruption, high levels of knowledge creation, strict application of the rule of law, high levels of social cohesion, and high levels of political stability

Análisis de la producción científica del Ecuador e impacto de la colaboración internacional en el periodo 2006-2015

Ecuador’s research outputs has been historically low when compared with other major Latin-American countries, largely due to a lack of a proper research culture that promotes adequate conditions for the research process and to the lack of priorization of research in universities. However, over the past 10 years, the government has introduced several policies to remedy this situation. We present here a bibliometric analysis of Ecuadorian research production along the period 2006-2015. Results show that the scientific production of Ecuador has increased 5.16 times over the past years, which exceeds Latin-American growth. Over 80% of Ecuadorian publications include international collaboration, mainly with the USA, Spain, UK, Germany, France, Brazil and Colombia. Public policy implications are also discussed.La producción científica del Ecuador en relación con otros países latinoamericanos ha sido históricamente baja, en gran parte debido a la falta de cultura científica y políticas adecuadas que promuevan la investigación, además del descuido en priorizar la investigación en las universidades. Sin embargo, en los últimos 10 años, el gobierno ha implementado diversas políticas para ayudar a remediar esta situación. Presentamos un análisis bibliométrico de la producción de la investigación ecuatoriana durante el período 2006-2015. Los resultados muestran que la producción científica de Ecuador ha aumentado 5.16 veces en los últimos años, lo que supera el crecimiento latinoamericano. Más del 80% de las publicaciones ecuatorianas incluyen colaboración internacional, principalmente con EE.UU., España, el Reino Unido, Alemania, Francia, Brasil y Colombia. Se discuten las implicaciones de política pública

A global analysis of the impact of research output on economic growth

The existing papers on the economic impact of research output have focussed on either a single country or bloc of selected countries. The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of research output on economic growth in 169 countries for the period, 1996–2013. A system GMM estimate, which provides for endogeneity, unobserved effects and small sample bias, is employed to test the relationship. Within the neoclassical framework, we use varieties of indicators to proxy research performance, and a few sensitivity analyses were also performed. Overall, the results show that research output has positive impact on economic growth, irrespective of whether the sample is for developing or developed countries. The policy implications of the findings are detailed in the body of the paper