Patrones de convergencia regional en los servicios de la economía española

The intense growth sustained over the last few decades by the service sector in Spain does not conceal the existence of differentiated degrees and rates of such growth across the regions. Accepting that public services are evenly distributed throughout the national territory, these differences may be caused by a certain tertiary specialisation (in tourism services, for example), or else by the existence of different levels of regional production of advanced services (basically, business services). The latter case may have negative consequences for regional development given the importance of such activities in the competitiveness and economic appeal of a territory. Therefore, a study of the patterns of tertiary convergence of the Spanish regions using cointegration is proposed. The use of this technique enables the behaviour of each economy to be individually analysed. The main results reveal the existence of clearly differentiated regional patterns of tertiary growth, identifying a set of not very developed regions with a low degree of tertiary development and scarce endowment of certain services fundamental for their growth.