Evaluation of country performances in terms of knowledge economy indicators

In today's global competitive environment, knowledge economy plays a critical role for countries to achieve their economic development and sustainable growth targets. The efficiency of the processes of production, acquisition, distribution and utilisation of knowledge directly affects the competitiveness and economic performance of countries. In this context, evaluating the performance of countries in knowledge economy indicators is important both in determining economic strategies and in shaping policies. This study aims to evaluate the performance of countries within the scope of knowledge economy indicators. In the study, the data of 45 countries between 2007 and 2020 were analysed. Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), Entropy Weight method, Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) and machine learning algorithms are used in an integrated approach by considering the dimensions of knowledge acquisition, knowledge production, knowledge distribution and knowledge utilisation. According to DEA results, the knowledge economy performances of the countries were evaluated for both countries and years. When the sub-category weights determined by entropy method are analysed, it is determined that the most important sub-dimension of knowledge economy is knowledge production. According to the GRA results, Belgium is the country with the highest performance in terms of general knowledge economy indicators, while Kyrgyzstan is the country with the lowest performance. In the evaluation made according to years, it was determined that the year in which the countries showed the highest performance on average was 2014 and the year in which they showed the lowest performance was 2007. In addition, machine learning algorithms were used as an alternative method to make a comparison with other methods. In the analysis by years, support vector machines showed the best performance. In the analysis by country, although the best performing algorithm was the extra trees algorithm, the accuracy of the forecasts obtained was not at an acceptable level. The results of the study evaluated the performance of countries in four different dimensions of the knowledge economy and provided important findings on the knowledge economy performance of Turkey in particular. This study is expected to contribute to the literature by providing an integrated methodological approach for measuring and evaluating knowledge economy performance.