Testing For Convergence in Output and in 'Well-Being' in Industrialized Countries

David Giles and Hui Feng

No 302, Econometrics Working Papers from Department of Economics, University of Victoria

Abstract: There is now an extensive empirical literature relating to tests for various forms of convergence between the real per capita outputs of different countries. The evidence from these tests is mixed, and depends upon the type of data used, the countries in question, and the sample period in question. However, very little attention has been paid to the possibility of an associated convergence in "well-being" across countries. Indeed, it is interesting to posit the lack of any connection between convergence in output (income) and convergence in "well-being". In this paper we address this issue in the context of fourteen OECD economies, using various measures of "well-being", and different tests of convergence. The latter include a time-series test recently proposed by Nahar and Inder (2002), and a test based on fuzzy clustering proposed by Giles (2001). Our findings indicate that in general one should not expect convergence in output to be associated with convergence in "well-being".

Keywords: Convergence; well-being indicators; time-series analysis; fuzzy clustering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 C63 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2003-04-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cbe, nep-dev and nep-lam
Note: ISSN 1485-6441
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vic:vicewp:0302

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