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Using the EU‐KLEMS database for 12 countries and 16 industries, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the differences in technological capital intensity (R&D capital stock as a percentage of GVA) between industries and the evolution of inequalities between the EU‐11 and the USA, as well as between EU countries.

The authors use shift‐share analysis and a Theil inequality index to break down these inequalities and to quantify the importance of either a country or a specialization effect.

Results from the shift‐share analysis show that there was a technological gap in favor of the USA until the mid‐1990s linked to the greater accumulation of technological capital in most of the productive sectors considered, this being the main reason for the differences in technological innovation between the USA and the EU‐11. However, since 1995 a change in productive specialization has occurred, with a significant drop in the weight of lower technology‐intensive industries in the EU‐11 economy, as well as a significant drop in the weight of some medium technology‐intensive industries in the USA, accounting for the reduction in the technological gap between the EU and the USA. Results from the Theil index show that the differences in the productive structure of European countries explain most of their differences in technological capital intensity.

The study discusses the issue from the standpoint of the distribution of technological innovation across industries. The variable analyzed and constructed is R&D capital stock and not R&D expenditures. It applies a methodology (shift‐share analysis and Theil index) not commonly used to analyze technological innovation inequalities.

Purpose: This chapter provides a meso-level scientific and economic study aimed at capturing the nature and extent of technological inequalities manifesting themselves in the regional economy. Regions shall mean economic systems within countries. The authors hypothesize that the regional economy of modern Russia is characterized by pronounced yet moderate technological inequalities at the level of the regional economy.

Design/methodology/approach: A factor analysis of the influence of different factors of state regulation of the regions on technological inequality in Russia is conducted. This makes it possible to develop and substantiate an economic and legal approach to managing conflicts in the sphere of digital development. A bifurcation analysis of wealth and resource dynamics is given.

Findings: In this chapter, the authors examine the basis for state regulation of technological inequalities in Russia’s regions.

Originality/value: The main focus of this chapter is the result of a regression-based factor analysis on the direction of state regulation of the regions on technological inequality in Russia.

In large parts of the world, income inequality has been rising in recent decades. Other regions have experienced declining trends in income inequality. This raises the question of which mechanisms underlie contrasting observed trends in income inequality around the globe. To address this research question in an empirical analysis at the aggregate level, we examine a global sample of 73 countries between 1981 and 2010, studying a broad set of drivers to investigate their interaction and influence on income inequality. Within this broad approach, we are interested in the heterogeneity of income inequality determinants across world regions and along the income distribution. Our findings indicate the existence of a small set of systematic drivers across the global sample of countries. Declining labour income shares and increasing imports from high-income countries significantly contribute to increasing income inequality, while taxation and imports from low-income countries exert countervailing effects. Our study reveals the region-specific impacts of technological change, financial globalisation, domestic financial deepening and public social spending. Most importantly, we do not find systematic evidence of education’s equalising effect across high- and low-income countries. Our results are largely robust to changing the underlying sources of income Ginis, but looking at different segments of income distribution reveals heterogeneous effects.

This paper investigates the effect of state-society relations on the industrially-related growth paths of developed countries.

It introduces a novel theoretical framework, the state-business-labor relations (SBLR) framework, where four main actors are identified: the state, big businesspersons or tycoons, owners and managers of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) or Entrepreneurs and labor. Different SBLR categories or modes are introduced depending on levels of coordination and power relations between the studied actors. The paper then investigates how these SBLR modes, through adopting various policies targeting the industrial sector, lead to different growth paths. Rather than focusing only on economic growth, this research regards a growth path as a matrix of the performance in long-run growth and equality of distribution.

Using regression analysis and statistical data, the results suggest that the Co-Balanced mode, having higher levels of coordination and lower favoritism, leads to the best growth path among the four introduced modes, especially with its emphasis on high levels of venture capital availability and easiness of starting business. while the Lib-Capture mode, characterized by lower coordination and higher favoritism, seems to have the worst growth path and the best implemented policy for this mode is suggested to be high profit taxes that seem to counter the negative impact of the existing high levels of favoritism.

Despite the important findings that this research has reached, this paper is mainly meant to open a further investigation into this topic and open this dimension that the research on VoC and political economy have under-researched. A deeper investigation of SBLR typologies that could only be possible by having richer datasets with more data on coordination for the whole world, rather than only the advanced economies, would further our understanding of the dynamics that shape the growth paths of different countries of the world.

To realize the best industrial growth path, fighting favoritism should be an important objective. The negative impact of favoritism on innovation could not be disregarded in the eve of the fourth industrial revolution, where innovation is increasingly pivotal to future industrial development. Actively engaging societal groups in the policymaking process is important in addressing their concerns and balancing them at the same time. This should lead to the double benefit of formulating better policies that should foster growth as well as provide better distribution of this growth. High levels of coordination should help in realizing this objective. Yet, this could only be possible if societal groups are free to associate and aggregate their power and when there are means of preventing one actor from gaining more favorite treatment and exclusive influence over policymakers. The presence of both powerful and broadly represented business associations and labor unions and the existence of a government interested in coordinating their efforts-rather than letting itself be controlled by one group at the expense of the others-should help in the realization of the best growth path. Thus, institutional reform that empowers societal groups and enables them to defend their interests as well as fights all forms of corruption should lead to the realization of a more prosperous and equitable industrial development, with the “re-industrialization” of the developed world being no exception. The technological and social challenges of intensive automation and digitalization accompanying the fourth industrial revolution make the envisaged institutional reform more urgent.

This paper is introducing a novel theoretical framework for studying the effect of state-society relations, particularly SBLR, on the industrial growth paths of developed countries. It integrates three important bodies of literature in order to build a more comprehensive understanding of the dynamics of state-society relations and their economic consequences. These are the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC), State-Business Relations (SBR) and Industrial Relations. The SBLR framework differentiates between tycoons and entrepreneurs, an important distinction that often goes unnoticed. Different SBLR categories or modes are introduced, depending on levels of coordination and power relations between the actors. It is proposed in this research that the effect on growth paths goes beyond the simple dichotomy between CMEs and LMEs usually present in the literature of VoC and that power relations provide an essential complementary dimension in explaining this causality.

Technological progress renders various skills obsolete, however, the rate of skill obsolescence will vary according to the worker's human capital investments. Workers heavily invested in general skills, such as education, will not suffer high rates of obsolescence, while less-educated workers who invest more in “technology-specific” skills will suffer more when the technology is changed. Consistent with this framework, this chapter demonstrates that increasing randomness is the primary source of inequality growth within uneducated workers, whereas inequality growth within educated workers is determined more by predictable factors. Furthermore, this chapter shows that increasing randomness generates a “precautionary” demand for education.

This paper aims to identify the digital gaps in seamless learning concept within the higher educational institutions (HEIs) context.

The most cited mobile-assisted seamless learning framework, recent Educause higher education research report and relevant articles have been reviewed.

The digital gaps among educators and students hinder the implementation of the seamless learning framework in HEIs.

The finding will inform HEIs in addressing digital gaps to ensure learning and teaching enhancement with educational technology across institutions. It will also be useful for the design and improvement of the seamless learning framework. The finding may also be useful in creating awareness among educators and students as to the benefit of educational technologies.

No previous viewpoints have been published on digital gaps in the seamless learning concept. The digital gaps among educators and students constitute one of the most critical issues in implementing technology-assisted teaching and learning design in HEIs. This paper addresses the root of the problem by examining the digital gaps among educators and students within the seamless learning framework.

This chapter is aimed at reflecting technologies as the key resources of modern regions, identifying the essence and modelling the digital inequality of Russian regions, as well as forming the methodological foundation for the consistent resolution of conflicts in the regional economy of Russia. Through the example of the regional economy of modern Russia, the method of the variation analysis is used for the analysis of differences between regions that are individually investigated in relation to the level of digitalization, and their regression dependence on the level of technological development is determined. As a result, it has been found that Russian regions are characterized by a number of conflicts due to their multi-aspect inequality; these include innovation conflicts, investment conflicts and quality of life conflicts. The abovementioned conflicts are mainly caused by differences in the provision of technological resources to regions (in their digitalization). The novelty and fundamental significance of this chapter consist in the clarification of the cause of spatial inequality through differences in the provision of technological resources to regions. The unique character of this chapter consists in justification of the technology factor of the emergence of inequality and conflicts of regions. This chapter proves that technological inequality exacerbates other aspects of inequality and conflicts of regions. Originality and practical relevance of this chapter consist in the evaluation of the prospects and development of recommendations for conflict management in Russian regions through overcoming differences in their technological support and accelerating the pace of their digitalization.

Purpose: This chapter aims to study the issue of technological inequality in the modern world economy from the position of assessment of the scale of global conflict and the scenario of its development depending on conflict management.

Design/methodology/approach: The performed review of literature sources has shown that they provide an insufficient scientific basis for determining the level of technological inequality in the modern world economy from the position of assessment of the scale of the global conflict and scenarios of its development depending on conflict management. To fill this gap in the system of scientific knowledge, we use the method of comparative and correlation analysis of statistical data. The research objects are China and the United States, as well as other countries of the world that have the highest level of technological development, trade, and digitalization.

Findings: This chapter provides a review of factors that determine scientific arguments in favour of technological inequality of countries, which leads to a global conflict. Many forms of inequality have a socio-economic character and are connected to access to the main services (healthcare, education, or accommodation), as well as incomes and access to the sources of income, especially in the sphere of employment. The deficit of decent work and inequality turned the COVID-19 pandemic from the crisis of public healthcare into the crisis of employment and social conflict, which influenced the subsistence of millions of employees. There is a real risk that without comprehensive and well-coordinated political actions, the increase in inequality and reduction of general progress in the labour sphere will be preserved in many dimensions. There’s a need for the measures of international policy to provide developing countries with access to vaccines and financial support, including through restructuring of debts.

Originality/value: It is proved that after the creation of the UN, the nature of conflicts and violence underwent serious changes. Conflicts take fewer human lives but last longer, and the frequency of conflicts between groups within a country is higher than the frequency of international conflicts. In certain parts of the world, crimes on a gender basis are increasing in numbers. Besides, technologies allow using robots, drones, cyberattacks, viruses, and hackers for military purposes. At the same time, international cooperation is weak, similar to the global ability to prevent and regulate conflicts and all possible forms of violence. Technological progress changes the character of the development of conflicts. Achievements in the sphere of AI and machine learning will play an important role in this process of transformation, so the character of threats from the government and non-government subjects will change. The use of AI raises the precision of cyberattacks and physical and biological attacks, making the identification of attackers very difficult.