Serenella Caravella, Valeria Cirillo, Francesco Crespi, Dario Guarascio, Mirko Menghini
{"title":"The diffusion of digital skills across EU regions: structural drivers and polarisation dynamics","authors":"Serenella Caravella, Valeria Cirillo, Francesco Crespi, Dario Guarascio, Mirko Menghini","doi":"10.1080/21681376.2023.2265498","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The digital transformation is an important driver of long-run productivity growth and, as such, it has the potential to promote a more inclusive and sustainable growth. However, digital capabilities, crucial to develop and govern new digital technologies, are unevenly distributed across European regions, increasing the risk of divergence and polarisation. By taking advantage of a set of original indicators capturing the level of digital skills in the regional workforce, this work analyses the factors shaping the process of digital skill accumulation in the EU over the period 2011–2018. Relying on transition probability matrices and dynamic random effects probit models, we provide evidence of a strong and persistent regional polarisation in the adoption and deployment of digital skills. Further, we investigate whether structural factors and European funds (European Regional Development Fund, Cohesion Funds and European Social Funds) are capable of shaping the digitalisation process and favouring regional convergence.","PeriodicalId":46370,"journal":{"name":"Regional Studies Regional Science","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.7000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Regional Studies Regional Science","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/21681376.2023.2265498","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"GEOGRAPHY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The digital transformation is an important driver of long-run productivity growth and, as such, it has the potential to promote a more inclusive and sustainable growth. However, digital capabilities, crucial to develop and govern new digital technologies, are unevenly distributed across European regions, increasing the risk of divergence and polarisation. By taking advantage of a set of original indicators capturing the level of digital skills in the regional workforce, this work analyses the factors shaping the process of digital skill accumulation in the EU over the period 2011–2018. Relying on transition probability matrices and dynamic random effects probit models, we provide evidence of a strong and persistent regional polarisation in the adoption and deployment of digital skills. Further, we investigate whether structural factors and European funds (European Regional Development Fund, Cohesion Funds and European Social Funds) are capable of shaping the digitalisation process and favouring regional convergence.
期刊介绍:
Regional Studies, Regional Science is an interdisciplinary open access journal from the Regional Studies Association, first published in 2014. We particularly welcome submissions from authors working on regional issues in geography, economics, planning, and political science. The journal features a streamlined peer-review process and quick turnaround times from submission to acceptance. Authors will normally receive a decision on their manuscript within 60 days of submission.