Smart specialisation: a diagnosis about specialisation and variety in Mexico

Abstract

The foundation of smart specialisation lies in the fact that the most diversified regions are also the most productive. In order to apply smart specialisation it is necessary to prove this relation for Mexico. For such purpose, two rates are computed: the revealed comparative advantage index to know the specialized states and the entropy measure to know the diversified states, based on data of the gross total production by state and sector of economic activity from 2004, 2009 and 2014 Economic Censuses. With the rates obtained the federative entities are classified in one of three possible categories: specialized states, related diversified states and unrelated diversified states. The results show that there are no significant differences between per capita GDP of the states with related variety and specialized states, but there are differences with respect to GDP growth.