Indústria Transformadora Portuguesa: Especialização das Regiões e/ou Concentração Geográfica de Indústrias?

Abstract

In spite of the relation between industrial specialisation and geographic concentration of industries, these are two different concepts. After clarify both, the aim of this paper is to analyze the structural change on Portuguese manufacturing industry from two perspectives: the specialisation of regions in particular sectors and the regional concentration of those sectors (industries). Our empirical study uses year’s data for the period 1996 - 2004 and made use of absolute indicators to measure whether individual industries becomes more or less concentrated in Portuguese regions, and whether the industry structure of the Portuguese regions becomes more similar. In first case we talk about geographical concentration of industries, in second about a decrease of sectoral specialisation of regions. The results suggest a high level of concentration and a variable level of specialisation between regions.