European Regional Science Association
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European Regional Science Association
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The abstract for paper number 356:
Maria-Amparo Toral, Departamento de Economía.
Facultad de CC Económicas y Empresariales.
Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Spatial Association of Regions during Convergence Processes. Applied Analysis to the Spanish provinces
The purpose of this paper is to establish the existence of a regular pattern of spatial association among Spanish provinces, related to the process of sigma-convergence of the last two decades, and, furthermore, to analyze this global pattern at a local level.
The global indexes of spatial autocorrelation are designed to detect the spatial dependence among the regions object of study, allowing to contrast the presence of a certain spatial distribution pattern against the null hypothesis of a random distribution of the variable analyzed through geographical space. But the global spatial association pattern is not always maintained at a local level, where we can observe clusters of regions in specific geographical areas presenting stronger or weaker levels of interregional dependence than what could be expected according to the global indicators.
In this study of the 50 Spanish provinces, the global spatial autocorrelation detected by the Moran’s I index is analyzed at a local level using the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis techniques. The Moran scatter plot and the local indicators of spatial association, related both to PIB per capita and growth, set the basis to the description of the specific pattern of spatial association among the Spanish provinces. The results are compared with the traditional justifications of Spanish provinces geographical associations.
Unfortunately full paper has not been submitted.