Knowledge Economy Gaps, Policy Syndromes, and Catch-Up Strategies: Fresh South Korean Lessons to Africa
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Knowledge Economy Gaps, Policy Syndromes, and Catch-Up Strategies: Fresh South Korean Lessons to Africa Simplice A. Asongu 1
Received: 1 July 2015 / Accepted: 8 October 2015 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015
Abstract Africa’s overall knowledge index fell between 2000 and 2009. South Korea’s economic miracle is largely due to a knowledge-based development strategy that holds valuable lessons for African countries in their current pursuit towards knowledge economies. Using updated data (1996–2010), this paper presents fresh South Korean lessons to Africa by assessing the knowledge economy (KE) gaps, deriving policy syndromes, and providing catch-up strategies. The 53 peripheral African countries are decomposed into fundamental characteristics of wealth, legal origins, regional proximity, oil-exporting, political stability, and landlockedness. The World Bank’s four KE components are used: education, innovation, information and communication technology (ICT), and economic incentives and institutional regime. Absolute beta and sigma convergence techniques are employed as empirical strategies. With the exception of ICT for which catch-up is not very apparent, in increasing order, it is visible in innovation, economic incentives, education, and institutional regime. The speed of catch-up varies between 8.66 and 30.00 % per annum with respective time to full or 100 % catch-up of 34.64 and 10 years. Based on the trends and dynamics in the KE gaps, policy syndromes and compelling catch-up strategies are discussed. Issues standing on the way to KE in Africa are dissected with great acuteness before South Korean relevant solutions are provided to both scholars and firms. The paper is original in its provision of practical policy initiatives drawn from the Korean experience to African countries embarking on a transition to KE. Keywords Knowledge economy . Catch-up . South Korea . Africa JEL Classification O10 . O30 . O38 . O55 . O57
* Simplice A. Asongu [email protected] 1
African Governance and Development Institute, P.O. Box 1834, Yaoundé, Cameroon
J Knowl Econ
Introduction The phenomenon of globalization has become an ineluctable process whose challenges can be neglected only by sacrificing the prosperity of nations. It is increasingly relevant today that for nations to be competitive and integrated into or involved in the world economy, they have to play by competitive rules that come with embracing globalization. Twenty-first-century competition is centered on knowledge economy (KE), a golden rule that has emerged as a key theme in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and World Bank reports since the start of the third millennium (World Bank 2007; Weber 2011). It is in this spirit that the dynamics of KE have been mastered by North America and Europe, who are inexorably charting the course of development in the international arena. In calculated steps, Latin America and Asia have been growingly asserting the need for KE in their pursuits of national and regional initia
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