The objective of this work was to verify the dynamics of economic development of the municipalities of the state of Ceará from a set of 14 (fourteen) variables related to the year 2010. The methodological approach used was the factor analysis technique for the definition of factors, and the cluster analysis for the formation of homogeneous groups. The empirical evidence pointed to an extraction of four factors that explain approximately 80% of the total variance of the development dynamics model of the municipalities. We observed that seven municipalities of the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza (MRF) stood out in the economic dimension and that only the municipality of Fortaleza stood out in the human dimension. The results showed that the Northwest and South regions presented lower economic development dynamics than the others. Finally, we found the existence of imbalances in the development dynamics between the regions of Ceará.
O objetivo deste trabalho foi verificar a dinâmica de desenvolvimento econômico dos municípios do Estado do Ceará a partir de um conjunto de 14 (quatorze) variáveis referentes ao ano de 2010. Utilizou-se a técnica de análise fatorial para a definição dos fatores e análise de clusters para a formação dos grupos homogêneos. A evidência empírica apontou uma extração de quatro fatores que explicam aproximadamente 80% da variância total do modelo de dinâmica de desenvolvimento dos municípios. Notou-se que sete municípios da Região Metropolitana de Fortaleza (RMF) se destacaram na dimensão econômica e que somente o município de Fortaleza se destacou na dimensão humana. Os resultados mostraram que as regiões Noroeste e Sul Cearense apresentaram dinâmica de desenvolvimento econômico inferior às demais. Por fim, constatou-se a existência de desequilíbrios na dinâmica de desenvolvimento entre as regiões cearenses.
The State of Ceará from the 1990s onwards has undergone political and institutional changes that have beenreflected in the economic dimension, a moment in which the modernization of Ceará’s institutions has been observed. In the social field, it was found that, in the same period, education and health are identified as important elements for growth and economic and social development in Ceará. Education, in particular, has remained on the agenda of public policies in Ceará, with the aim of improving its quality. That has made it present a comfortable situationwhen comparedto other northeastern states, for instance, with a reduction in the illiteracy rate of 26.5% to 18.8% between 2000 and 2010 (SOUZA; TABOSA, 2016; MARIANO; ARRAES; BARBOSA, 2016).
In terms of territorial division, the State of Ceará is divided into seven geographic mesoregions with different economic, social, demographic, and physical characteristics. Concerning physical aspects, we can highlight mesoregions that undergo periods of intense drought, while others stand out due to agreater availability of water. In economic terms, it is noted that the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza mesoregion accounts for 64% of Ceará’s GDP, followed by the Northwestern mesoregion with a share of 10%. The Mid-Southern mesoregion, in turn, had the lowest participation in the State’s GDP in 2010 (2.52%). Regarding the Municipal Human Development Index (2010) of the regions, it was 0.62 (on average), with emphasis on the Metropolitan Region mesoregion, which recorded the highest value with 0.67.According to Brasil (2019), the regions with the greatest participation in the state’s agricultural units were the Metropolitan Region of Fortaleza, the Northwest and the Jaguaribe.The industrial units are concentrated in the Metropolitan Region (75%) and in the South (9.4%).
So, aiming to reinforce the debates around socioeconomic development strategies in the State of Ceará, which has become a challenge in view of a multiplicity of evidence, the following question arises: What factors can explain the dynamics of economic development in the State of Ceará? The hypothesis raised in this paperis that the economic variables, as opposed to the social variables, solidify as the variable group that mainly explains the development of Ceará’s municipalities. This hypothesis is based on the fact that the economic dimension contains variables of the three major economic activities (agriculture, industry and services) that can make it so that municipalities that do not have industrial activity within their productive structure are influenced by trade activities and services.
That said, this project intended to verify the dynamics of economic development of the municipalities of the State of Ceará from a set of fourteen (14) economic and social variables referring to the year 2010. It intended, further, to establish a hierarchy between the municipalities by mesoregion that have greater or lesser development potential and to identify possible development clusters in the State. At the end, the paper will provide elements for decision making in the area of promotion and allocation of regional investments.
This article has four sections in addition to this introduction. The first brings a discussion of the debates on development and economic growth. The following section explains the methodological aspects used, with apresentation of the sources used for the database and the factor analysis and cluster analysis methods. The results are presented in the fourth section along with the hierarchy of Ceará’s municipalities. And lastly, in section five, the final considerations are made.
2.1 The nuances of Regional Economic Development
Discussions about development date back a long time, are often complex and have undergone several changes over the years (SANTOS et al., 2017). Adam Smith himself has said that the wealth of a nation would be the result of its productive work, the specialization of the workforce and the division of labor. For Joseph Schumpeter in “The Theory of Economic Development” (SCHUMPETER, 1982), development is not explained by economic growth, but by the process of spontaneous and discontinuous change, when innovation is presented as a consequence of new combinations. Thus, within this theoretical scope, there is a need to debate the issue of regional development, which has undergonetransformations over the decades of the twentieth century. The work arising from the studies of economists and geographers in the 1950s, after the World War II, allowed advances in the understanding of three concepts and strategies for regional development considered of fundamental importance for understanding existing regional inequalities. Therefore, more than fifty years later, regional economic studies encompass several approaches, theories and models to understand the trajectories of regional development (CAPELLO, 2009).
The first concept developed and brought to debate was the one developed by François Perroux in 1955 called “growth hub”, which supports the idea that regional economic development takes place via growth and development hubs with strong connections with regions of influence(PERROUX, 1961). These hubs are thus characterized by a high rate of economic development and numerous cooperative connections(SZAJNOWSKA-WYSOCKA, 2009). However, according to Szajnowska-Wysocka (2009), areas strengthened or created as growth hubs end up dominating relatively weaker regions and become competitive at the expense of others. According to Capello (2009), the idea defended by Perroux is that the existence of development poles is concentrated due to the synergy and cumulative forces generated by stable and lasting local relationships, in which the physical space is conceived as diversified and relational.
The second theory refers to the “cumulative circular causation” (CCC) elaborated by Myrdal (1957) and exposes the instability and imbalance of the economic system. The third was the theory developed by Hirschman (1958) who used the theories of the former to detail the effects back and forth. In this line, the author considers that the key industries, or Perroux’s driving industries, are stimuli to the potential growth of the product by induction in a given underdeveloped economy.
For Haddad (2009), in this theoretical context, development involves the well-being of society and, for this reason, the author takes into account the variable product per capita as an important element for measuring the productivity of a given economic region. However, Haddad (2009) points out two aspects inherent to the theme: i) first, he adds other relevant aspects for achieving economic development, they are: associative capacity, entrepreneurship and income distribution;ii) Haddad confirms, in this case, what was presented by Pelinski (2007), by stating that development is not something that occurs spontaneously, which therefore requires planning associated with governmental purposes, that is, it makes clear the need for State intervention in the regional economy.
Thus, economic development, especially when it comes to the regional issue, involves the consideration of a set of broad aspects, which in turn involve economic and social information, as they are what cause regional disparities. Economic variables, on the one hand, tend to reflect the level of economic growth achieved by a region, but alone they are insufficient to say whether a region is developed or not, for this reason it is necessary to include other variables related to the other dimensions, among them, the social variables (EBERTHARDT; LIMA, 2012).
Šabić and Vujadinović (2017) reinforce that economic activity is spatially concentrated, as cities and even some developed economic regions use the effects of agglomerations to attract labor and capital to achieve more favorable economic conditions than other regions. The authors also emphasize that studies on European experiences have contributed to discrepancies between causes and consequences of regional inequalities. For this reason, regional development is a complex process, which consequently requires multidisciplinary andmultidimensional approaches. In this aspect, there is an important contribution of the authors when they consider regional development as a process that requires adaptations and specific conditions, in which particular factors of each region must be considered in order to maintain its unique characteristics.
In this aspect, Szajnowska-Wysocka (2009) attests to the importance of the need to continuously observe and record the socioeconomic reality at a regional or local level in order to predict future development, especially in the European scenario of endogenous development.
Therefore, woven this brief theoretical background, we begin to present the empirical works regarding the issue of economic and regional development. For this reason, the authors state that economic development must lead people to obtain an improvement in their income, in addition to improving social conditions.