The “IMPACT” of Web of Science Coverage and Scientific and Technical Journal Articles on the World’s Income: Scientific Informatics and the Knowledge-Driven Economy

The study acknowledges the web-based applications in maintaining the high-quality scientific and technical journal articles (STJA) every year that contributed to progressing the World’s income per capita through providing solutions to the economic issues. The study collected the quarterly aggregated world data for 2000Q1 to 2020Q4 to analyze the IMPACT (Interactive, Mechanical, Powerful, Applicable, Controllable, and Technical) of STJA and research and development (R&D) expenditures on the World’s income. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) estimates show that the STJA and web-based IMPACT positively impact the World’s per capita income in the short and long run. The one-to-one corresponding relationship found between the web IMPACT and the World’s income in the short and long run. On the other hand, a 1% increase in the STJA brings a positive change of 0.937% ( p <0.000) and 0.994% ( p <0.000) on the World’s income in the short and long run. The negative relationship found between R&D spending and World’s income in the short run; however, this result evaporates in the long run. The innovation accounting matrix (IAM) estimates suggested that STJA and web-based IMPACT will likely increase the World’s income for the next 10 years. The study concludes that web-based applications and their IMPACT positively contributed to an increase in the World’s income, which confirmed the viability of web engineering in handling economic affairs and policy formulations.