Digital Technologies, Labour Markets, and Income Inequality

Digital technologies are disrupting and reshaping the social and economic landscape, stimulating the emergence of a new status quo. As digitalization intensifies, questions emerge about whether and how these digital technologies affect labour markets and thus income inequalities. The relationship between digitalization and income inequalities is multidimensional and depends on various factors, including skill levels, occupational characteristics, and regional differences in technology adoption. This book contributes to the present state of knowledge, offering broad evidence of how digital technologies affect income inequalities, taking into account various determinants and channels of impact. It offers a novel perspective presenting empirical evidence at the regional level, primarily examining European regions but also considering countries outside of Europe for broader context, as well as highlighting rural-urban disparities. The book presents conceptual and historical foundations of cross-regional differences. It assesses regional trajectories of income and wealth inequalities, identifying the non-economic roots of income and wealth inequalities at regional levels, as well as the channels of impact of digitalization on regional income and wealth inequities. It offers a long run perspective on the dynamics of digitalization and income distribution and analyses the impact of labour market structure on income variations. Furthermore, it underlines the moderating role of digital skills on the labour market and their impact on the unequal distribution of earnings. The book’s principal audience will be scholars and academic from a wide variety of disciplines but mainly those addressing issues of economic development and growth, social development and the role of technological progress in a broadly defined socio-economic context.