Myrdal contra Ohlin: Accounting for the Sources of U.S. County Per Capita Income Convergence Using a Flexible Decomposition Approach

Ellis Eff ()

The Review of Regional Studies, 1999, vol. 29, issue 1, 13-36

Abstract: The neoclassical perspective, exemplified by Bertil Ohlin, predicts the fact of interregional per capita income convergence and is therefore often invoked in explaining its causes. However, convergence is also explained by other perspectives, such as Gunnar Myrdal's circular and cumulative causation. Applying a flexible growth-accounting decomposition to nominal per capita income changes in U.S. counties (1969-1996), this paper finds that ß convergence was generated by government transfer and wage spending, rather than the private sector forces postulated by Ohlin. Migration data suggest that the movement of retirees from rich counties to poor has been an important source of convergence.

Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://journal.srsa.org/ojs/index.php/RRS/article/view/29.1.2/pdf To View On Journal Page
http://journal.srsa.org/ojs/index.php/RRS/article/download/29.1.2/341 To Download Article (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rre:publsh:v:29:y:1999:i:1:p:13-36

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Regional Studies is currently edited by Tammy Leonard & Lei Zhang and Lei Zhang

More articles in The Review of Regional Studies from Southern Regional Science Association Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Tammy Leonard & Lei Zhang ().