Is climate change a source of economic disparities between regions in Benin? Evidence from the spatial effects analysis method

Using a panel of 28 European Union countries for the period 2003–2014, the authors provide empirical evidence for the relationship between innovation, technological specialization, and income inequality. The results of the fixed effect panel regressions show two important findings. Firstly, the positive link was found between innovation, as measured by patenting activities, and income inequality as measured by Gini index and the top 10% income shares of the richest. Secondly, the authors also found the positive correlation between technological specialization, as measured by the Coefficient of Variances (CV) of Revealed Technological Advantage Index, and income inequality. Overall, the study enriches the previous literature suggesting that innovation may increase the gap of income distribution through the mechanism of Skill-Biased Technical Change (SBTC) and the Schumpeterian view of entrepreneurial rent. More importantly, this study is the first which found that not only the level of innovation does matter to the income distribution, but also how the innovation activities are specialized or diversified. Concentrating the activities into few narrow sectors (i.e., increase technological specialization) may also lead to the increase of income inequality.

Development of the system of ensuring quality in higher education of Ukraine grounded the creation of such management subject as a guarantor of the educational program. However, a formal understanding of the role and uncertainty of the guarantor’s status in the contemporary area of managing higher education institutions became the widespread consequence of those innovations. Considering the stated above, various models of managing the quality of educational programs with the help of the guarantor have been developed in the research, and conditions for efficient application of such models in Ukrainian universities have been grounded. The research is based on the application of the strategic analysis method GAP for identifying issues and features of organizing management in systems of internal quality assurance in universities, and methods of modeling and graphical analysis method for creating alternative management systems in educational programs with and without such professional educational-scientific structural subdivisions as departments. As a result, the developed models include the rational organization of management of educational programs under the conditions of centralized and decentralized systems of internal educational quality assurance provision. For instance, it could create favorable conditions for decreasing bureaucracy and repetition of functions in the management system of universities and lead to the realization of the individual potential of guarantors as managers-experts in educational programs.

Acknowledgment
To the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance for the possibility to take part in accreditation expertise and consulting evaluation of educational programs in universities of Ukraine. The research was carried out also within the context of the tasks of Ukrainian-American international project “Program of professional development of them managerial staff in Ukrainian universities,” which was initiated by the investment company “Rayter Inc.” (The USA). In addition, we are thankful to the Czech Development Cooperation support, which allowed this scientific cooperation to start (through projects: “Strengthening scientific capacities and cooperation of Ukrainian universities in AgriSciences” and “Interuniversity cooperation as a tool to improve the quality of selected universities in Ukraine”).

This paper aims to analyze various indicators to explain the impact of inequality and income on economic growth at the regional level of Kazakhstan. The data collected from the Bureau of National Statistics from 1995 to 2020 examined the impact of country, interregional, and market inequality indices and real income/wage on the GRP of different regions. Applying the methods such as analysis of unique statistical data covering 16 regions of Kazakhstan and log-linear multivariate regression analysis, which was carried out using the STATA software package, evidence was provided on the influence of interregional, country inequality, and income on economic growth. The analysis showed the differential impact of inequality and income. It was found at the first stage that the gap between interregional inequality and country inequality is insignificant. It was identified at the second stage that in models with real incomes, an increase in income has a negative impact on the development of the economy of Kazakhstan. All the models obtained are consistent and have (although not very high) significant explanatory power and confirm the relationship between inequality and economic growth. The findings can help policymakers, regionalists, economists, and governmental bodies understand the importance of income inequality and which areas can contribute to the formation of effective regional policy.

Acknowledgments
The study was carried out within the framework of program targeted IRN OR11465433 funding by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan “Development of the concept and mechanisms of balanced territorial development of the economy and society of Kazakhstan”.