Regional differences in the level of production automation and their impact on the spatial development of wages and labor migration flows

Abstract

The article analyzes the impact of regional differences in the level of production automation on spatial development, wage dynamics, and labor migration flows in the national economy. The aim of the study is to quantitatively assess how the heterogeneity of industrial technological renewal, through the mechanisms of productivity, cost structure, and job quality, shapes long-term trajectories of regional divergence. The empirical base consists of panel data for 85 regions for 2012–2023, supplemented by statistics on robotization, business process digitalization, migration, and financial indicators, on the basis of which an integrated index of automation is formed, combining value-based and quantitative indicators. The methodology relies on fixed-effects and spatial-effects models, a modified Mincer-type wage equation with technological variables, gravity models of migration, decomposition of inequality by Gini and Theil indices, as well as scenario modeling of possible trajectories of regional technological development. It is shown that in high-tech clusters, the increase in investment in software, robotics, and digital capital with high elasticity is transformed into growth in productivity and real wages, whereas in depressed economies automation either does not occur or is implemented in a “cost-reduction mode,” almost not increasing household incomes. A stable positive relationship has been established between robotization density, the digital skills premium, and the migration inflow of the working-age population, generating a long-term outflow of human capital from low-tech regions. Financial analysis of ROI and payback periods of automation projects by types of regional economies revealed threshold levels of efficiency at which a bifurcation arises between the trajectory of self-sustaining growth and a “depressive trap.” It is concluded that automation acts as a powerful multiplier of regional inequality and at the same time, as a potential instrument for its mitigation, provided that there is a differentiated state policy aimed at increasing the return on technological investments and developing human capital in lagging territories.