Geographical Specialisation in Spanish Agriculture Before and After Integration in the European Union

Abstract

This paper analyzes the evolution of agricultural product specialisation at the farm and county levels in Spain from 1979 to 1997. This period covers all the stages of the gradual implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy and the integration of the Spanish agriculture into the European Market. A multiple product version of Theil and Finizza’s indices of segregation is used to decompose farm product specialisation into county specialisation with respect to the national level and farm specialisation within counties. Using a probit specification, we test whether changes in specialisation are driven by comparative advantage at regional level or have been policy induced. Our results confirm the existence of increasing county specialisation and highlight the fact that counties which were initially more specialised in export-oriented products have shown the largest increase in specialisation.