Abstract
An increasing number of researchers have recently shown interest in the relationship between economic growth of a country and its research output, measured in scientometric indicators. The answer is not only of theoretical interest but it can also influence the specific policies aimed at the improvement of a country’s research performance. Our paper focuses on this relationship. We argue that research output is a manifestation of the improvement of human capital in the economy. We examine this relationship specifically in South Africa for the period 1980–2008. Using the autoregressive distributed lag method, we investigate the relationship between GDP and the comparative research performance of the country in relation to the rest of the world (the share of South African papers compared to the rest of the world). The relationship is confirmed for individual fields of science (biology and biochemistry, chemistry, material sciences, physics, psychiatry and psychology). The results of this study indicate that in South Africa for the period 1980–2008 the comparative performance of the research output can be considered as a factor affecting the economic growth of the country. Similarly, the results confirm the results of Vinkler (2008) and Lee et al. (2011). In contrast, economic growth did not influence the research output of the country for the same period. Policy implications are also discussed.
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Notes
“Scientometrics can be defined as the system of knowledge which endeavours to study the scientific system with the use of definite methods: observation, measurement, comparison, classification, generalisation and explanation. To use a parallel, scientometrics is for science what economics is for the economy. Both disciplines attempt to study social phenomena with the rigour provided by the scientific methods” (Pouris 1994).
Both Pesaran et al. (2001) and Narayan (2005) generated critical values for the specific non-standard F distribution. However, Pesaran et al. (2001) used samples of between 500 and 1,000 observations while Narayan (2005) used smaller samples of between 30 and 80 observations. Given that our sample is a relatively small one, the Narayan (2005) critical values are preferred.
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Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank the staff members of the Department of Economics, University of Pretoria, which attended a presentation of an earlier version of the paper and provided their valuable comments and suggestions towards the effort’s improvement. Particularly, comments by Prof. Koch (Head of the Department) Prof. Viegi, Prof. Gupta, Prof. Zimper and Prof. van Eyden are greatly appreciated. The article has been improved by the comments of two anonymous referees. The normal caveat applies.
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Inglesi-Lotz, R., Pouris, A. The influence of scientific research output of academics on economic growth in South Africa: an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) application. Scientometrics 95, 129–139 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0817-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-012-0817-3