PRIN/PNRR – GLOBAL VALUE CHAINS, DIGITALISATION AND POLARISATION IN EUROPE

This project sets out to investigate the GVC-digitalisation nexus and its implication for polarisation both within country-industries and along GVCs, e.g. the production of vehicles produced in Italy and all the activities involved in their production across all countries and industries. The research looks at three major sources of socio-economic inequality: (i) the share of value added that goes to labour compensation, (ii) the polarisation of wages and (iii) polarisation in the occupational structure looking at different functional specialisations within and between country-industries. In doing so, the project makes a number of contributions:

1. It considers digitalisation as taking place along all GVCs and not just in a given country-sector.

2. It looks not only at the distribution of value added and wages, but also at changes in occupational structure as a result of digitalisation and GVC participation.

3. It studies how vertically integrated production processes at the EU level are affected by digitalisation. A key contention of this project is that digitalisation takes place along GVCs, as well as within country-industries. Therefore, the project will put forward measures of digitalisation and polarisation along these two dimensions.