The Effects of Technology-as-Knowledge on the Economic Performance of Developing Countries: An Econometric Analysis using Annual Publications Data for Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, 1976-2004

Extant literature indicates that technology, and by implication its underlying knowledge base, determines long-run economic performance. Absent from the literature with respect to developing countries are quantitative assessments of the nexus between technology as knowledge and economic performance. This paper imposes a simple production function on annual pooled observations on Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa over the 1976-2004 period to estimate the marginal impacts of technology as knowledge on economic performance. It finds that capital (k), openness to trade (τ), and even the share of government expenditure of GDP (G) among other factors, influence economic performance. However, the economic performance of countries like Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa depends largely on technology, technological change, and the basic knowledge that forms the foundation for both. For instance, measured as a homogenous “manna from heaven”, technology is the strongest determinant of real per capita income of the three nations. The strength of technology as a determinant of performance depends on the knowledge underpinnings of technology measured as the number of publications (Q, q). Both Q and q are strongly correlated with the countries’ performance. This suggests that the “social capability” and “technological congruence” of these countries are improving, and that developing countries like Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa gain from increased investment in knowledge-building activities including publishing. Obviously there is room for strengthening results, but this analysis has succeeded in producing a testable hypothesis

Globalization, Peace & Stability, Governance, and Knowledge Economy

A previous analysis of the impact of formal institutions on the knowledge economy of 22 Middle-Eastern and Sub-Sahara African countries during the 1996-2010 time period concluded that formal institutions were necessary, but inadequate, determinants of the knowledge economy. To extend that study, this paper claims that globalization induces peace and stability, which affects governance and through governance the knowledge economy. The claim addresses one weakness of previous research that did not consider the effects on the knowledge economy of globalization. We model the proposition as a three-stage process in four hypotheses, and estimate each hypothesis using robust estimators that are capable of dealing with the usual statistical problems without sacrificing economic relevance and significance. The results indicate that globalization has varying effects on peace and stability, and peace and stability affect governance differently depending on what kind of globalization induces it. For instance, the effects on governance induced by globalization defined as trade are stronger than those resulting from globalization taken to be foreign direct investment. Hence, we conclude that foreign direct investment is not a powerful mechanism for stimulating and sustaining the knowledge economy in our sample of countries. However, since globalization-induced peace and stability have both positive and negative effects on governance simultaneously, we also conclude that while the prospect for knowledge economy in African countries is dim, it is still realistic and attainable as long as these countries continue to engage in the kind of globalization that does indeed induce peace and stability. We further conclude that there is a need for a sharper focus on economic and institutional governance than on general governance as one possible extension of this paper

Foreign aid, instability and governance in Africa

This study contributes to the attendant literature by bundling governance dynamics and focusing on foreign aid instability instead of foreign aid. We assess the role of foreign aid instability on governance dynamics in fifty three African countries for the period 1996-2010. An autoregressive endogeneity-robust Generalized Method of Moments is employed. Instabilities are measured in terms of variance of the errors and standard deviations. Three main aid indicators are used, namely: total aid, aid from multilateral donors and bilateral aid. Principal Component Analysis is used to bundle governance indicators, namely: political governance (voice & accountability and political stability/no violence), economic governance (regulation quality and government effectiveness), institutional governance (rule of law and corruption-control) and general governance (political, economic and institutional governance). Our findings show that foreign aid instability increases governance standards, especially political and general governance. Policy implications are discussed