R&D spillovers through student flows, institutions, and economic growth: What can we learn from African countries?

Using modern panel cointegration estimation techniques, this paper examines whether tertiary student flows can effectively transmit technological knowledge from industrialized countries to African countries. The results obtained lend strong support to this hypothesis. In addition, this paper extends the analysis to include institutional variables such as the ease of doing business, legal origins, and religious majority in order to see if institutional characteristics affect the way knowledge diffusion affecting total factor productivity. However, it is not clear that institutional differences are important factors that influence the degree of R&D spillovers and, hence, the total factor productivity of African countries.