June 2015

Science and technology capacity in Africa: A new index

In 2001, the RAND Corporation´s Science and Technology Policy Institute created an Index of Science and Technology Capacity for the World Bank, which ranked 150 countries on their potential to innovate and collaborate with more scientifically advanced nations. At that time, the African nation that ranked highest on the list was Mauritius, at number 59, and of the bottom 20 countries, 14 were African. In the...

Author(s): Gayle Allard

June 2015

The (Un)identical twins: Public administration and public management toward improving education and training for effective governance in Ghana

There are some disagreements between academics and practitioners on how to improve the performance of government officials in Ghana. While academics advocate for reforms in governance through education and training, practitioners may have differing interests and expectations. Such impasse has contributed to the lack of a unified framework of concepts in nation building. Core concepts for training public managers for...

Author(s): Kwame Badu Antwi-Boasiako

June 2015

African growth, non-linearities and strong dependence: An empirical study

The aim of this paper is to examine the behaviour of GDP growth in various African countries allowing for possible non-linearities that are particularly relevant in their case since they have been affected by various conflicts. Specifically, first we carry out standard unit root tests and then follow an approach that combines fractional integration and non-linearities (modelled using Chebyshev polynomials) in a single...

Author(s): Borja Balparda, Guglielmo Maria Caporale and Luis A. Gil-Alana