The nexus between digitisation and knowledge-based economy in low-income countries: the case of post-conflict Syria

Abstract

In the era of global economic structural transitions, evaluating the trade-off costs of prioritising digitisation over improving a sustainable socio-economic development in low-income economies should be placed at the core of policymaking. This study endeavours to examine the impact of digitisation on the transition to knowledge-based economy in low-income economies, post-conflict Syria as a case study. We use the documentary research method (DSM) to analyse documents related to digitisation and ICT related activities in Syria. Then, we run autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) to investigate the short and long-run relationship between digitisation process and the transition process towards knowledge-based economy in post-conflict Syria. Our results indicate that the digitisation process in Syria is not a priority at the short and long-run and cannot solely support the transition process towards knowledge-based economy in post-conflict Syria. On the contrary, digitisation, in the absence of certain conditions, may harm the transition towards knowledge-based economy.