The paper argues that criticisms of shift-share techniques are insufficiently strong to affect its application to the analysis of regional growth in the United Kingdom. Evidence for the 11 British regions for 1952-75 is used to demonstrate the robustness of the technique in the context of differing levels of sectoral disaggregation and choice of base years and the technique is then extended to incorporate multiplier and linkage effects. Finally its utility is compared with that of analysis of variance techniques for standardising for industrial structure.
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