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At the end of 1990s, Danny Quah devoted several papers to the analysis of polarization and stratification in the convergence processes of economies, creating the image of the 'convergence clubs' and suggesting the importance of studying the distribution dynamics of the macroeconomic variables. As for the labour markets, Overman and Puga (2002) showed that a progressive polarization of unemployment was in fact occurring among the European regions in 1986-1996, causing a phenomenon of cross-border clusterization. Here we propose to analyse the evolution of the unemployment rates of the EU 27 regions in the last two decades assuming that the unemployment rates evolve according to a Gompertz stochastic process. The estimated parameters of the process - intrinsic growth rate, deceleration factor, volatility - represent the evolutionary path of the unemployment rate and allow for estimating the steady state of the process. A cluster analysis is performed on the steady state values of the unemployment rates. The analysis confirms the emergence of several 'convergence clubs' among the European regional labour markets, which are compared to the clusters resulting from the more traditional clusterization on the current unemployment rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine whether a single (dynamic) housing market exists across 16 cities within Australia and New Zealand. The two countries are closely integrated but cities are up to 5,000 kilometres apart. A single housing market exhibits a common set of forces determining the long run real house price path in all cities. A strong (weak) form occurs when an innovation affects house prices across all cities to an equal (unequal) degree. The 16 cities comprise a weak form single housing market with significant spatial and dynamic complexities. Three city groups emerge with a natural interpretation in terms of economic and spatial characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study presents novel evidence regarding the role of regional internet infrastructure in reducing regional per capita income disparities. We base our study on the assumptions that (1) the diffusion of information homogenizes regional economies through reducing the dissimilarities in institutions and culture, and (2) the telecommunication capacity, represented by the internet infrastructure of a region, facilitates this flow of information. Using the data from the 26 statistical NUTS‐2 regions of Turkey for the period 1999–2011, we find evidence that internet infrastructure increases the speed of regional convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration has been seen as an important issue in regional development worldwide. This study analyses the impact of internal migration on provincial growth in Indonesia. Applying a growth model, this study found evidence that migration played no role on regional convergence during the 1975-2005 period. However, different policies affected the signs and sizes of the estimates across sub-periods. Moreover, inter-provincial migration, especially in-migration in poorer provinces, had a positive impact on economic growth in Indonesia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study suggests a two-step approach to identifying and interpreting regional convergence clubs in Europe. The first step calculates Bayesian probabilities for various assignments of regions to two clubs using a general stochastic space-time dynamic panel relationship between growth rates and initial levels of income as well as endowments of physical, knowledge and human capital. The second step uses the club assignments in a dynamic space-time panel data model to assess long-run dynamic direct and spillover responses of regional income levels to changes in initial period endowments for clubs that were identified. We find different dynamic partial derivative responses to endowments by regions in the two clubs that appear consistent with low- and high-income regions as clubs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]