The incidence and transfer of knowledge in the Arab countries

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.