Building a sustainable development index and spacial assessment of municipalities inequalities in the state of Ceara/Construcao de um indice de desenvolvimento sustentavel e analise espacial das desigualdades nos municipios cearenses/Construccion de un indice de desarrollo sostenible y analisis espacial de las desigualdades en los municipios cearenses

The paper builds a sustainable development index based on environmental, social, economic and institutional dimensions and presents a spatial assessment of municipalitties inequalities in the State of Ceara. Sustainability indices force institutions and governments to question their standards and act as "driving forces" for public policy-making. The validity of sustainability indexes is heavily dependent on how their components are weighted and aggregated. The research is quantitative developed through secondary data acquired in public agency databases of the country (Brazil) and federal unit (State of Ceara). Data analysis included confirmatory factor analysis for the construction of general sustainability indexes, descriptive analysis of these indices and spatial econometric modeling to represent on the map of Ceara municipalities. The survey results reveal a regular adjustment of the sustainable development index. The model allows a geographical view of sustainable development indicators and presents with a tool in the definition of public policies for social equity, environmental and economic. The analysis of social, economic, environmental, institutional and general indices revealed that the most urban areas of the State of Ceara have a greater sustainable development and confirms the fragility of public policies in promoting regional balance. Keywords: confirmatory factor analysis; spatial econometric model; sustainable development; composite indicadors; state of Ceara. O artigo apresenta a analise espacial da sustentabilidade nos municipios cearenses a partir da construcao de um indice de desenvolvimento sustentavel, embasado em dimensoes social, ambiental, economica e institucional. Os indices de sustentabilidade forcam instituicoes e governos a questionarem seus padroes e atuam como "forcas motrizes" para a elaboracao de politicas publicas. A validade dos indices de sustentabilidade depende da definicao do conjunto de indicadores, e das tecnicas adotadas para definicao dos ponderadores e agregacao dos indicadores. A pesquisa e de natureza quantitativa, desenvolvida por meio de dados secundarios, e adotou analise fatorial confirmatoria para a construcao do indice de desenvolvimento sustentavel (IDS) e modelagem econometrica espacial para representacao das desigualdades no mapa dos municipios cearenses. Os resultados da pesquisa revelam um ajuste regular do indice de desenvolvimento sustentavel. O IDS permite uma visualizacao geografica e identifica