SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES AND REGIONAL INEQUALITIES: an analysis of the municipalities of Bahia

Abstract

Faced with the low performance of the Bahian economy in recent years, this work investigates the evolution of behavioral patterns and spatial groupings in Bahian municipalities, related to their economic activities and GDP per capita. The Municipal Economic Activity Index (INDICA) is used, which classifies activities in banking activity, external opening, tax collection and labor market. The descriptive analysis of the variables and the Exploratory Analysis of Spatial Data (AEDE) showed, respectively, the economic inequality of Bahian municipalities and the spatial concentration of per capita GDP and economic activities in the West and in the Metropolitan Region of Salvador, while in the semi-arid region the opposite occurs. Few changes occurred in the spatial distribution of the variables between 2014 and 2019 and, in the external openness variable, there was only formation of clusters of municipalities with low growth, which shows that stagnation can be accompanied by contracture of activities already established.