Identification and Spatial Hierarchy of Industrial Conglomerates with Census Data. A Suggested Procedure and Application to the Mexican Case of Study

This study suggests a new methodological combination and sequence of existing techniques of spatial analysis to identify industrial conglomerates and set up their spatial hierarchy. The word "conglomerate" refers to the fusion of concentration and agglomeration processes of magnitude or intensity. In this research, concentration is the occurrence of high global values, regardless of their location. On the other hand, agglomeration is the concentration of adjacent high local values. Both agglomeration and concentration create conglomerates of magnitude or intensity when they are merged through a geographical overlay procedure. While magnitude refers to size, intensity refers to importance of the studied variable. For the first time in the study of the spatial pattern of manufactures, the spatial hierarchy is obtained by overlaying conglomerated and non-conglomerated high values of magnitude and intensity. Potential benefits of the suggested procedure for an area-based public policy are illustrated by assessing industrial employment in 2352 and 2457 Mexican municipalities in 1998 and 2013, respectively. The suggested procedure in this study may easily be extended to identify spatial patterns of diseases, crime, poverty, aging population, pollution or environmental justice in different areas or countries.