Urban growth and territorial dynamics in Spain (1985-2001): A spatial econometrics analysis

The study of the territorial/regional development in Spain has nowadays a relatively long tradition, but from the point of view of cities development the number of studies and documents decreases drastically. This paper tries to improve the knowledge of the Spanish urban system. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to determine the factors that explain the urban growth of Spanish cities; secondly, to observe the cities situation in terms of ¡§winners¡¨ and ¡§losers¡¨ after the long period of integration of Spain in the EU. A spatial conditional ƒÒ- convergence equation is specified and the Durbin-Wu-Haussman exogeneity test is used to check on the existence of simultaneity between urban growth and the control variables. The classic problems of spread and backwash are studied by including a spatial autoregressive term and spatial regimes ¡Vconvergence clubs- in the growth model.