Digital Technologies in the Innovative and Structural Transformation of Low- and Middle-Income Economies

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

While in high-income countries the development of digital technology began in the 1970s, in low- and middle-income countries it began in the 1990s and even after 2005, due to the political regime that constrained economic development and innovation. At the same time, there are no studies of the relationship between technological development and structural changes through innovation in low- and middle-income countries. The article aims to quantify the relationship of the introduction of digital technologies on innovation, structural transformation of low- and middle-income economies. The industrial-agrarian economy of Uzbekistan with an authoritarian regime is in a state of transition to a market economy, while in Ukraine, there are active processes of Europeanization and integration into the EU. Ukraine's economy is commodity-based (the export of raw materials of industries and the agricultural sector in developed countries predominates) and industrial-agrarian. Digital technologies and the service sector are little developed in Uzbekistan. On the other hand, Ukraine has a more developed ICT sector. Uzbekistan is gradually undergoing an innovative and structural transformation of the economy: the productivity of the agricultural, industrial, and service sectors is growing, but the ICT sector is virtually undeveloped. In comparison, in Ukraine, there are no significant structural transformations due to a significant drop in productivity of the industrial sector, with stable growth of productivity of the agricultural sector due to technology and a slight increase in productivity of the service sector. It is revealed that Ukraine and Uzbekistan have undergone structural transformations of the economy in favor of the service sector, while the agricultural and industrial sectors produce less and less. If Uzbekistan remains the industrial-agrarian country with an aggregate share of the added value of these sectors 59% in 2019, Ukraine transits to the post-industrial type of economy where the added value of the service sector in GDP grows (55% compared to agrarian and industrial sectors at 42%).