Agglomeration and dispersion of economic activities in and around Paris: an exploratory spatial data analysis

The agglomeration patterns of twenty-six manufacturing and service sectors in and around Paris in 1999 are analysed. The method used measures the intensity of spatial agglomeration and identifies the location patterns of economic sectors. First the locational Gini coefficient and Moran’s I statistics of global spatial autocorrelation are computed. These provide different but complementary information about the spatial agglomeration of the sectors under study. Then exploratory spatial data analysis tools are applied. Moran scatterplots and local indicators of spatial association statistics reveal great diversity in location patterns across sectors.