The Rural Development Policy in Extremadura (SW Spain): Spatial Location Analysis of Leader Projects.

Since the 1990s, a series of rural development aid programs (LEADER Approach) has been implemented in European rural areas, including Extremadura, in order to solve the demographic, social, and economic problems that rural areas experience. The main objective of these programs is to diversify the economy to reverse these problems. The purpose of this present paper is to study the distribution of the investments committed during the period of 2000-2013 in Extremadura according to the geolocation and to perform the analysis of clusters through Local Moran's I, Getis-Ord Gi*, and Kernel Density in order to determine whether the results are related to the demographic and economic behavior of each territory of action and if these act as location factors for investments. We found that most dynamic towns receive more investments, leaving out the more physically, economically, and demographically disadvantaged ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]