Location quotient

Aim of the method/technique	The Location Quotient measures the degree of export orientation of one or more economic sectors of a local or regional economy with reference to the economy of a higher spatial level (the regional or the national).
Scale – spatial and temporal	Regional and national level mostly. It can be applied to the local level also.
Brief description	Air: employment, income, output, investment in region (or, spatial subdivision) r in sector j Ar: total employment, income, output, investment in region (or, spatial subdivision) r Ain: total employment, income, output, investment in the ‘country’ in sector j An: total employment, income, output, investment in the ‘country’
Data requirements	Sectoral employment, income, investments or other economic data at local, regional and national level.
Main applications in cropland , grazing land and forests & shrubland regions	---
Strengths and weaknesses	The value of the QL is affected by the level of spatial and sectoral aggregation as well as by the time period to which the data correspond. Major weakness is the lack of a theoretical framework to interpret the values of QL meaningfully.