Patterns of spatial association and their persistence across socio-economic indicators: the case of the Greek regions

Despite some impressive advances recently in spatial analysis, one important spatial question appears largely overlooked: how spatial dynamics differ across a range of socio-economic indicators. This papers attempts to address this issue, examining data from the prefectures of Greece. It starts with an extensive exploratory spatial data analysis of a range of socio-economic indicators, which helps identify spatial patterns of association characterising the Greek regions. Then, it explores the persistence of spatial clustering across this set of socio-economic indicators through the application of a number of simple statistical tests. Greece presents an interesting case for examination, given its complex nature of spatial disparities and processes, especially in terms of spatial heterogeneity, that are linked in the paper to key aspects of the political and economic development of the country. The derived results are important for Greek regional policy, as they help highlight yet another dimension of the challenges it faces for regional development, but they are also of particular relevance for applied spatial analysis, as they offer new insights in the analysis of spatial processes.