The Centroid Method - Statistical Method of Territorial Profile Factor Analysis

Abstract

The regional statistics provides the quantitative methods requested to a right knowledge of phenomena variability in territorial profile, as well as, the substantiation of regional strategies and policies of economic development. Also, the regional statistics supplies the explicit analyses of the space variability, being a principal instrument for the factor identification and evaluation of the disparities between "regional and territorial", between "territorial and national". In this way, the regional statistic research requires efficiency, particularity, opportunity, as the harmonization of national statistic information is not possible without taking into account the specific, regional and spatial variability.

The factor modeling of spatial phenomena, from the research point of view, is a paradigm that requires a large scale of statistic techniques and methods to explicitly analyzing the general phenomena within a geographic space.

The centroid method provides information about the extend to which, the joint factors, taken into consideration individually or in assembly, contribute to explaining the factor variability of the studied variable, enabling to select the joint factors with significant influence upon the analyzed model.

Keywords: regional statistics, factor modeling, centroid, factor axe, factor weights matrix

JEL Classification: C10