An index to assess maritime importance in the European Atlantic economy

Successive marine policies set by the European Union identify the maritime sectors as crucial drivers for growth and jobs in the EU economy. The design of.marine policies and the assessment of the importance of the maritime economy need empirical support that provides the basic data to help the decision making process. This paper proposes a metric, in the form of a synthetic index, to measure and compare the importance of the maritime sectors in the European Atlantic area. The index scores can be used to assess the position of each Atlantic region so that it is possible to compare its performance to the rest of the area. The results show the relative weight of the maritime sectors in the European Atlantic regions and the high heterogeneity among them. Analyzing the maritime economy with this index can provide guidance for the design of economic policies to identify and revitalize the regions with greater potential for Blue Growth in the Atlantic area. This may help to put into perspective the importance of the maritime economy and can serve to improve the socio-economic dimension of the use of marine waters. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.