Underlying dimensions of knowledge assessment: factor analysis of the knowledge assessment methodology data

Derek H. C. Chen and Kishore Gawande

No 4216, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: The Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM) database measures variables that may be used to assess the readiness of countries for the knowledge economy and has many policy uses. Formal analysis using KAM data is faced with the problem of which variables to choose and why. Rather than make these decisions in an ad hoc manner, the authors recommend factor-analytic methods to distill the information contained in the many KAM variables into a smaller set of"factors."Their main objective is to quantify the factors for each country, and to do so in a way that allows comparisons of the factor scores over time. The authors investigate both principal components as well as true factor analytic methods, and emphasize simple structures that help provide a clear political-economic meaning of the factors, but also allow comparisons over time.

Keywords: Statistical&Mathematical Sciences; Econometrics; Economic Theory&Research; Education for Development (superceded); Innovation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-04-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ino and nep-knm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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