György Vida (p), Szakálné Kanó Izabella, Imre Lengyel

Boglárka Barsi

One of the indicators of long-term economic development is that higher value-added sectors, e.g. how the information and communication sector is growing. Economic restructuring is also an essential element of the smart specialization strategies emphasized in EU regional policy, as they aim to promote integrated, place-based economic development programs. In our research, we examine how the economic structure of the NUTS3 level territorial units (counties) of five Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia) changed between 2000 and 2018. Data on employment and gross value added (GVA) of 11 sector groups per county are taken into account each year. The spatial concentration of sectors and the specialization of each region type are analyzed using Theil indices. Among the results, we can see that there is a strong concentration of modern business services, especially information and communication, as well as the financial sectors in big cities, mainly in capitals, while retail services but also manufacturing are more spatially distributed. Labor productivity in modern business services is improving rapidly, reaching 55% in the 12 older EU Member States, while e.g. the manufacturing industry, which enjoys priority development aid, has been stagnant at 30% for years.

Pinar Ozcanli Baran (p), Ferhan Gezici

György Vida

Developments in information and communication technologies (ICT) cause changes in the economic and social structure of countries, regions and cities. While the COVID-19 process, which affects the whole world on a global scale, accelerates the digitalization process, this process has revealed the importance of access to ICT tools. In addition to the economic and social inequalities between developed and undeveloped regions, the digital divide that has been on the agenda since the 90s is defined by whether individuals have access to ICT or not. However, the competence of individuals using ICT tools are not the same, which leads to the digital divide. The necessity of accessing and using ICT in remote working and education conditions during the pandemic period has made digital inequalities even more visible. The previous spatial studies in Turkey explained the differences between regions with topics such as unemployment, income level and education.

The aim of this paper is to analyze the digital divide brought more important in the COVID-19 period at the spatial level. Spatial analysis was conducted to evaluate the impact of the underdeveloped provinces on the neighboring provinces and the inequalities that caused the negative situation created by this effect. For this purpose, the ICT development index (IDI) produced by the United Nations organization International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and used to detect the digital divide in the literature was calculated for the years 2012 to 2020 for 81 provinces in Turkey. Analysis of spatial dependence at provincial level with IDI values was made using Global Moran's I and Local indicators of spatial association (LISA) test statistics.

According to the findings of the study, it is observed that the provinces with high IDI are mostly clustered in the west, while the low values are clustered in the east. In addition to the economic inequality between the provinces in the eastern and western regions, the existing digital inequality has deepened during the pandemic period. It has been seen that the ICT access rates of the provinces are higher than the ICT usage rates and that both the access and usage rates of Istanbul are in an outlier position.

As a result, this study contributes to alleviating the existing spatial inequalities in Turkey, as well as the negative political, cultural and economic consequences that the digital divide may cause, especially during the epidemic period such as COVID-19.

Vas Zsófia (p), Izabella Szakálné Kanó

Pinar Ozcanli Baran

The dynamics of the digital economy lead to inequalities and have formed a new type of inequality, the so-called digital divide. The phenomenon appeared three decades ago and was primarily traced back to unequal access to digital technological conditions, however, it has become clear that inequalities can also stem from other sources, like digital skills. The digital divide can be interpreted at the level of individuals, households, businesses and geographical areas. The latter is the regional digital divide, which faces a number of challenges, especially in less developed regions.
The present research seeks to answer the question of how the digital divide between regions has changed in Hungary in the light of the digital (ICT) skills of employees. The identification of occupations according to digital (ICT) skills is based on the OECD (2016) ISCO code-based categorization, which was developed on the basis of the PIAAC (Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) survey. Based on 2001 and 2011 census, and 2016 micro-census data, primary findings highlighted that the digital divide is detectable in Hungary on the level of counties, and it is changing over time. In the perspective of 16 years, the research reveals where digital underdeveloped and developed areas are located; and what kind of dimension of digitalization determines the relative position of counties.