Does income convergence among countries really occur?

• Autor(a) principal: Almeida, Eduardo Simões de
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Outros Autores: Freitas, Maria Viviana de
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Estudos Econômicos (São Paulo)
• Texto Completo: https://www.revistas.usp.br/ee/article/view/38341
• topic: interação espacial; convergência de renda; econometria espacial; spatial interaction; income convergence; spatial econometrics

The most studies on income convergence imply that countries are isolated geographicunits, not considering the underlying spatial interaction (spatial dependence andheterogeneity). This paper investigates the analysis of income convergence among countries incorporating the neighborhood effect provided by the spatial interactionand, thereby, controlling for spatial dependence and spatial heterogeneity. To do so,a local spatial model was constructed over five-year period between 1985 and 2005for 148 countries. Main findings reveal the existence of multiple equilibria consideringthe analysis of local convergence. A group of countries is approaching a particularequilibrium due to the existence of correlated attributes or because it was in an initiallocation corresponding that equilibrium, fact in line with the convergence clubs andmultiple equilibria. The convergence intervals defined here result from how economicgrowth in a country progresses as for its pace, which is conditioned to its initialsocioeconomic characteristics in relation to the growth of other countries and not inrelation to its own growth trajectory. Furthermore, in contrast to convergence clubs,these convergence intervals are defined ex-post, taking into consideration the growthdynamics specific to each country.