Regional Growth and Structural Adaptation

Abstract

The relationship between regional growth differentials and regional differences in industrial composition is frequently analysed in terms of a standardisation technique known as shift and share analysis. Such an approach is subject to a number of limitations, including its inability to identify the impact on regional growth of changes in industrial composition during the time period under consideration. A modification to this technique is presented here which facilitates the isolation of such effects. The application of this modified technique to Standard Regions of the U.K. demonstrates that regional policy in the sixties seems to have had at least some effect in securing a more favourable industrial mix in the less prosperous regions.

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