Template-Type: ReDIF-Article 1.0
Author-Name: Antonio Rafael Peña Sanchez
Author-Name: Mercedes Jiménez García
Author-Name: José Ruiz Chico
Title: CONCENTRACIÓN REGIONAL DEL CAPITAL PRODUCTIVO EN LA INDUSTRIA AGROALIMENTARIA ESPAÑOLA
Abstract: 7Resumen:En este trabajo se trata, por un lado, de presentar la dinámica territorial del crecimiento de la industria agroalimentaria experimentada por el conjunto de la economía regional española, desde una óptica distinta a la que utiliza la teoría convencional. La atención se centra en la contrastación de la hipótesis sobre la concentración de la actividad productiva del sector agroalimentario planteada por la Nueva Geografía Económica, aplicándose a la localización espacial de actividades en las regiones españolas en el periodo 1980-2011. Por otro lado, se pone de manifiesto algunos de los factores que explican la concentración regional del stock de capital productivo de la industria agroalimentaria en las regiones españolas, tales como la eficiencia productiva regional, la localización y especialización de la mano de obra, el tamaño del mercado de consumo, el acercamiento a los mercados abastecedores de materias primas y la dotación territorial de infraestructuras.Abstract:
In this paper, the aim
is to present the territorial dynamics of the growth of the agri-food industry
experienced by all the Spanish regional economies from a different perspective
than the conventional theory. The focus is on contrasting the hypothesis about
the concentration of productive activity in the agri-food sector raised by the
New Economic Geography, applying it to the spatial location of activities in
the Spanish regions in 1980-2011. On the other hand, according to the
theoretical development about industrial location, this paper will consider the
hypothesis that the regional location of the productive activities which make
up the agri-food industry in Spain,
is explained by the following factors:
a) The agri-food production efficiency of the Spanish
regions, so that the business location of this sector will be linked to the
territories with higher employment productivity in the agri-food sector;
b) The location and specialization of labour.
According to it, the productive activity of this sector will be established in
those regions with greater employment per head dedicated to the agri-food
activity;
c) The size of consumers market, whereby the
implementation of companies in the sector under study will be given with more
intensity in those regions with the highest population density;
d) The approach to markets which supply raw materials,
so that agri-food companies will tend to be located in those regions with
greater presence of a predominant agricultural sector; and
e) The territorial endowment of infrastructures, in
the sense that the regions with higher level of infrastructures will be more
prone to the location of a greater number of companies in general, and the one
of the sector which has been in particular analyzed.
It is interesting to
note that the focus of this research differs substantially from most analyses
carried out at the regional level in Spain. They have tried to study the
evolution of the level of development of the regions based on Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) or Gross Value Added (GVA) per head, as well as the factors which
explain the regional disparities in these variables. In this study, the
regional growth of the agri-food sector will be analyzed from a different
perspective, trying to identify factors that favor the geographic concentration
experienced by the agri-food industry in the Spanish regions in the long period
under analysis.
Considering the scarce availability
of statistical sources on the sector under analysis, for the evaluation of the
productive efficiency of the agri-food sector, the evaluation of the productive
efficiency of the agrifood sector is feasible by using an indicator of apparent
labor productivity, related by quotient of Gross Value Added at the cost of
factors (from now on GVAcf), being valued at constant 2000 prices, and the
level of employment measured from the employed population in that sector. At
the same time, in order to represent the competitiveness of the sector examined
in this paper, this study has been supplemented by two additional elements,
such as wage costs and export capacity.
In order to have the appropriate statistical
framework, the sources consulted for the period under analysis have been, on
the one hand, the Agri-Food Statistics Yearbooks (2000-2008) of the Ministry of
Agriculture and Fisheries, Food and Environment (http://www.mapama.gob.es/es/estadistica-/temas/publicaciones/anuario-de-estadistica/); on the other hand, the data offered by the
Spanish National Institute of Statistics (INE) (http://www.ine.es/) and the
Institute of Statistics of Andalusia (IEA) (http://www.juntadeandalucia.es:9002/); and
lastly, the BD.MORES database of the Secretariat of Finance and Budget of the
Ministry of Economy and Finance (http://www.igae.pap.meh.es/sitios/sgpg/es-ES/Presupuestos/Documentacion/paginas-/bases-datosestudiosregionales.aspx) and BBVA Foundation (2000), to obtain the surface of the
Spanish regions (http://www.fbbva.es). The BD.MORES database presents
the regional figures disaggregated to a level of 17 productive sectors,
excepting the capital stock, which does so to a level of only 14 sectors. In
order to homogenize the relations established between the variables used below,
the disaggregation in 14 sectors has been decided. The methodology used to
assess the territorial concentration of the agri-food sector has been given by
the application of the Coefficient of Geographical Association of Florence and
the breakdown of Theil Index. The influence of the elements considered in the
regional concentration of the stock of productive capital of the agri-food
industry has been estimated by means of a regression supposing, an
autocorrelation scheme for the perturbations through a process AR(1). And
lastly, an attempt has been made to assess the correlation between the
territorial distribution of agri-food activity and the competitiveness index,
established through an expression combining elements such as the apparent
productivity of employment, export quotas measured through of percentage of
sales destined to the foreign market and the cost per employee.
The results obtained in
the carried out analysis about the location of the business activities of the
agri-food sector in the Spanish regions in 1980-2011 are presented below. The
trend towards regional concentration of agri-food production in Spain does not
seem to have been accentuated in recent years. In fact, a clear process of
polarization has been maintained around four areas such as Catalonia,
Castilla - León, Andalusia and Valencia,
whose evolution placed them in the first places of the classifications which
try to reflect the territorial hierarchy of wealth in the agri-food sector.
The application of the Coefficient of Geographical
Association of Florence, together with the decomposition of the Theil Index,
allows us to observe how a weak process of geographic concentration of the
agroindustrial monetary wealth occurs in the Iberian peninsula, whose reasons
seem to have been favored by the evolution experienced by the capitalization of
employment and hampered by the regional agglomeration of labor factors and
population density.
It seems that the productive efficiency, the capacity
and specialization of the labor market, the size of the consumer market, the
provision of productive public capital and the proximity to the commodity
markets have been constituted as key elements for the agri-food business
organizations to implement plants and productive equipment geographically in
the Spanish regions.
It can be affirmed that some of the factors, which
have influenced the growth of the private productive capital of the agri-food
industry in the Spanish regions, have been the evolution of jobs per head and
the size of the consumer market. In this sense, if this premise is true, as
seen with the data which have been explored, the differences that have been
produced in the location of the population, generally assumed to be the regions
with the highest level of development Economic, can become a crucial factor in
the location of agro-industrial business activities in the future, which
broadens the horizon of action for new research in this regard.
Disparities in the regional localization of agrofood
productive physical capital have been reduced in the three decades analyzed,
accepting the beta convergence hypothesis applied to the used data. In this
sense, it is plausible to think that territorial administrations, through
sectoral policies and incentives, can and should play a crucial role in
achieving the creation of a regional economic and socially stable environment
which guides the decision-making of agri-food business organizations with
respect to their location. It is therefore appropriate for the competent
authorities to make an outstanding effort to ensure that all the Spanish
regions are properly connected to each other and to the important economic
areas of the European Union, through investments in infrastructure, in order to
promote attracting productive agri-food ones which allow a growth of the level
of economic development, intensifying these efforts in more depressed regions
to help the regional convergence.
The empirical evidence on the location of
agroindustrial activities in Spanish regions, according to the used
methodology, seems to accept the hypothesis raised by the New Economic
Geography, which predicts phenomena of concentration and agglomeration of
productive activities in those more developed territories economically, based
on the assumptions of increasing returns and imperfect competition.
It is necessary to emphasize that the carried-out
analysis does not conclude here. There are still aspects that have not been
incorporated, such as factors that favor the territorial concentration of the population, and that may undoubtedly be influencing
business decisions to locate the agroindustrial sector, opening a new field of
research that would need to be addressed. In addition, it is reasonable to
think that the use of new databases, using even the same methodology used here,
could corroborate the conclusions that have been made in this work. This would
undoubtedly provide a consolidation of the analysis carried out, reinforcing
the obtained results.
Classification-JEL: R1
Keywords: Localización de la Actividad Productiva Agroalimentaria, Productividad aparente del empleo, Nivel de infraestructuras, Convergencia Beta, Índice de Theil, Industria agroalimentaria, Location of The Productive Activity, Apparent Productivity of Employment, Infrastructure Level, Beta Convergence, Theil Index, Agri-Food Industry
Pages: 71-100
Volume: 3
Year: 2018
File-URL: http://www.revistaestudiosregionales.com/documentos/articulos/pdf-articulo-2553.pdf
File-Format: Application/pdf
Handle: RePEc:rer:articu:v:3:y:2018:p:71-100