Measuring spatial concentration: A transportation problem approach

Abstract

This paper will propose an index for measuring spatial concentration, which is based on the solution of a particular transportation problem. This approach extends a new index proposed for the measurement of seasonality to the spatial case, and it takes into account the level of the concentration of the phenomenon of interest according to its spatial distribution. Various properties of the proposed index, which make it a desirable measure for spatial concentration, will also be described. An empirical application, using data from selected European countries, will be provided, and the results derived from the proposed index will be compared with those derived from currently used indices.