Yavuz, Selahattin; Manga, Müge

Practical analysis of the policies implemented by countries successful in the field of science and technology is crucial, especially in the context of optimal policy selection for countries needing technological development. In this context, ranking the world’s countries in terms of technological development is important for increasing the effectiveness of the policies to be implemented in this field. This study ranks 28 OECD countries on seven key science and technology indicators in 2022 using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods. In the analysis, first, the importance of the variables was ranked based on the entropy method. Then, a ranking was made among the selected countries in terms of technological performance using the weighted aggregated sum product assessment (WASPAS) method. The findings obtained with the WASPAS method were confirmed with the additive ratio assessment (ARAS) method. Among the identified variables, the export market (share of computer, electronics and optics sector) parameter was selected as the most dominant criterion. Korea, Germany, Japan, France and the Netherlands were determined to be the best performing in terms of basic science and technology indicators. On the other hand, it can be said that Chile, Latvia, Luxembourg and Lithuania need more effective policies in terms of technology and innovation indicators. In this context, it can be suggested that the policies implemented by countries at the forefront in technological development should be a guide for other countries.

Soyyigit, Semanur; Nisanci, Murat

It is a theoretical fact that countries in which foreign direct investments (FDI) are realized by trans-national corporations for the purpose of profit should have some economical and institutional pull factors. This study examines whether Chinese FDI in African countries is supported theoretically by the economic and institutional factors of these African countries or whether these investments instead serve mercantilist policies of China independently of these factors. With this in mind, we examined the effect of the GDP, trade openness, natural resource rents and some institutional indicators of the host African countries on the Chinese foreign direct investments within the period 2003-2017 for 10 African countries. We used Swamy's random coefficient panel regression method due to the heterogeneity of these 10 African countries. The empirical results show that China makes foreign direct investments in Africa for market and resource-seeking purposes which display significant elements of a "chopsticks" mercantilist policy.