What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence?

Paul Johnson and Chris Papageorgiou ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: We examine the record of cross-country growth over the past 50 years and ask if developing countries have made progress on closing income gap between their per capita incomes and those in the advanced economies. We conclude that, as a group, they have not and then survey the literature on absolute convergence with particular emphasis on that from the last decade or so. That literature supports our conclusion of a lack of progress in closing the income gap between countries. We close with a brief examination of the recent literature on cross-individual distribution of income which finds that, despite the lack of progress on cross-country convergence, global inequality has tended to fall since 2000.

Keywords: Economic growth; convergence; catching up; global inequality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E01 E13 F41 F62 O11 O47 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-gro, nep-mac and nep-opm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

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Related works:
Journal Article: What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence? (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:89355

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