Productive Performance and Industrial Agglomeration Patterns in Northern Brazil

Abstract

Amid the regressive transformations that occurred in the Brazilian industry, the article analyzes how this process has affected the productive performance and the spatial configuration of the industrial structure in Northern Brazil. For this, agglomeration and coagulation coefficients usually used in the literature on economic geography and industrial location were examined in the period 2007-2017. In general, geographically more concentrated activities, obtained better performances in terms of labor productivity. However, the strong structural heterogeneity compromises performance even among sectors with similar technological standards. In addition, mineral commodity industries, which already had a strong influence on the regional productive structure, are growing rapidly. A different picture is observed among manufacturers of capital and durable goods, whose slow growth is consistent with modest evolution in local intersectoral connections.