The Causal Relationship Between Knowledge-Based Economy Components and Economic Complexity

Moving towards a knowledge-based economy, in which growth depends on the quantity, quality, and availability of existing information, is of great importance. The amount of technological knowledge available in a country reflects the level of development. One of the most reliable indicators for measuring the amount of technological knowledge of countries is the Economic Complexity Index. The research attempts to examine the causal relationship between the economic complexity and the components of the knowledge economy. To this end, a panel data model was used. The data consists of 113 countries over the period 2016-2006. For the knowledge economy, we used fourteen variables, which were introduced by the World Bank. By employing Principle Component Analysis, four components were calculated as indicators of the four knowledge economic pillars. Then, the Granger causality relation of these components with the economic complexity was investigated. The result shows that there is a two-way causal relationship between the components of Education, Communication and Information Technology, Economic Institution and economic complexity, and one-way causal relationship from Innovation to Economic complexity. Furthermore, the causal relationship varies among OECD and non-OECD countries.