Desenvolvimento regional, especialização e suas medidas

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to discuss the roll of specialization in the proccess of regional development. We start by criticizing the empiricism in Regional Economics, unable to distinguish the diversification that grows up from development to the roots of this proccess. Its main argument is that there is no oposition between specialization and diversification. And its end is a new interpretation of the most used measure of regional specialization — the Location Quotient — that frees it from its traditional bounds to the level of employment in different sectors of economy