Investigation of Equity in Economic Development: A Case Study in Matara District, Sri Lanka.

Abstract

The economic development is emerging field in modern economics. The concept explains the process by which a rffi.tion improves the economic, political and social­wellbeing of its citizenry. The decentralized economic system of Sri Lanka introduced and implemented several national action plans, which emphasized all island development. As a particular overall management controller, the government of Sri Lanka failed to the goals of the rapid economic development to the level of expected. Even though Sri Lanka has introduced regional development planning in the past several decades, a significant variation between the regional economic growth and development is evident. The concept of economic development is a multidimensional phenomenon that prevailed prior to the concept of sustainable development in Sri Lankan context. It allows setting of national benchmark indicators that compared the regional development in international level. Therefore, the governments, local and international investors including all other stakeholders could be able to focus achieving the targets of the economic development of a country. The core objective of the study was to evaluate the equity in economic development generated in the context of Matara district, Sri Lanka through comparing divisional secretariat divisions. Secondary data were gathered through the statistical handbooks related to the sixteen divisional secretariat's divisions in Matara district published in 2018. The cluster analysis was used to achieve the core objective of the study. Population density per km 2, dependency ration, registered business places by ensity, manufactured· industries by density, financial industries by density, estimated head count index, number of people in poverty by density, hotels by density and electricity beloved houses by density were used as the key variables. Matara divisional secretariat's division appeared to be quite different from any other divisions in Matara district in the economic development perspective. Similar to the agglomeration schedule economic development status it can suggest that the level of homogeneity of the clusters merged at these stages were relatively stable. There were different types of clusters visible in economic development. Hence, there is an inequality in recourses distribution among the divisional secretariat's division in the district. The policies should be able to focus formulate on identifying the sectors with inequity and ensure equal economic development in the district. Present investigation revealing the statistical method of identifying the inequity that can be applied in any secretariat division in the country. The study also highlighting the need of policy formulation towards ensuring the equity in resources sharing, as a factor of economic development of a country.