Factores diferenciales del desarrollo de la comarca del noroeste murciano

Abstract

ABSTRACT The main objective of this work has been to understand the main reasons why the Northwest Region of Murcia was in a situation of less economic development in relation to the Region's highest per capita income districts. The lack of studies at the regional level was necessary to an investigation based on small territories, as municipalities and counties. This type of study could be the natural continuation of the work carried out at the aggregate level (countries and large economic areas). Any research in the field of the economy earns in realism if it refers to a specific geographical area. Economic policy must be adapted to the peculiarities of each county, becoming the territorial and functional unit for economic analysis. We would talk about polycentric human district (includes several main centres), where relations of solidarity and cooperation between people take precedence, being at the same time a homogeneous and planned region (needs some planning to achieve high levels of development). The first chapter is a synthesis of the most important theories in the field of the Development Economics, including those currents that try to explain the differential behavior of a region or county (theories of regional and local development). The second part is based on a set of personal interviews of response open conducted with 22 key informants in the area (mainly development managers, representatives of the Local Administration, businessmen, University professors and managers of Local Employment Centres). The third part is to test the different theories of development and the opinions of different experts in the particular problematic area. For this purpose, a series of local analysis tools to characterize socio-economically to the region of the Northwest are applied. In contrast to the previous part, the methodology is quantitative, accompanied by graphical analysis to synthesize statistical information. The most novel contribution of this work has been to explain the differential factors of the development of the county, using as explanatory framework the main theories of development. Also has been quantified the socio-economic welfare of the population including indicators of demographic scope, structure of the market of work, environmental, historical and artistic heritage, housing, economic endowment and human capital. The main objective of economic policy would be to increase the levels of this synthetic indicator of happiness, where would not be a steady state, as classical economists have said, but state in permanent evolution without upper limit. Under this methodology, the regions that have higher rate of welfare would be Murcia, Cartagena, Lorca, and Vega del Segura. Northwest would occupy fifth place thanks to their high level (first position) for indicators of housing, environmental and historic-artistic heritage. On the other hand, is below the regional average in demographic, economic endowment and human capital indicators. The main reasons for the lower economic endowment would be the continuous loss of people with higher education, the lack of industrial diversification, lower private investment, the reduced weight of the rural and religious tourism in the regional tourism offer and the absence of economic plans of action at county level. It is concluded that the development process is diferent in each nation. The mechanism of the market economy is not sufficient to promote development. The ideal would be that people from different fields reflect on his homeland and begin to design policies for each productive sector. We would talk about the fifth factor of production in an economy.