A Long Run Analysis of Regional Economic Structure of Selected Districts Using Shift Share Method

The study of the structure of industrial sectors of a region is important to understand the growth and development of a region's economy. The national growth of a sector is a driving factor for the progressing of that sector in a region. Shift Share analysis is a standard long-run regional analysis technique for assessing the performance of sectors in the regional economy. It highlights the performance of a region’s mix of industries and the uniqueness of a regional economy. This study seeks to quantify how much of the growth of an industry of a region is attributable to national growth and how much is proliferated by locational factors using Shift Share Components. Employment data of thirteen sectors from the “Economic Census-2003 and 2013” report has been analyzed for seven districts of Barisal and Chittagong division. The comparative analysis of the selected districts reveals that Hotel and Restaurant sector is flourishing in all of the districts for both positive influences of external and internal factors while Real Estate and Renting, and Transport, Storage and Communication activities have been lagging for all the districts. All of the districts, except Bhola and Pirojpur would become economically weak in the long run, while Rangamati district is in economic malaise relative to the other districts. Thus, Shift share would be useful for the regional planners to set investment targets by identifying high-performing regional industries