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The paper evaluates the convergence paths of Central and Eastern European member states of the EU during the 2010s, when the main task for these countries was avoiding the middle-income trap—when wages are not so low anymore to compete with less developed countries, while innovation is not developed enough yet to compete with developed countries. Using various statistical indicators, the paper shows that while most countries in the region have been on a convergence path during the decade under analysis, not all succeeded in avoiding the trap. While some countries successfully implemented policies to step on the path of productivity- and innovation-led growth (Czechia, Slovenia, Estonia, and Lithuania), in several other states, growth was supported mainly by low costs and loose monetary conditions including significant transfers from the EU. The comparative analysis of Estonia and Hungary illustrates the different growth models and shows how the institutional system plays a key role in exiting the trap.

The European Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol 14. no. 1, p. 141-154, This paper aims to model the convergence of economic development of Albania within the Western Balkans and in the context of European integration aspirations of the region. The conclusion of this paper is that the Balkan countries have converged among themselves and toward European Union (EU). But the speed of the convergence is moderated with the hit of global crisis and the recovery still seems difficult to the rate of pre-crisis. As economies in transition that are attempting to converge with the European development stages, the economies of the Balkan countries have to go through structural evolutions that are similar among countries. The variables used in this study are the income per capita, growth rate, sector contribution to GDP growth and the added value per worker in agriculture. The data is measured for the period from 1995 to 2015 in order to establish a substantial data series for trend analysis and understanding if countries in the study are converging or diverging with EU in terms of their income and economies profile. The issue of the productivity and further specialization of their output by using their advantages in resources comes into question.

Business cycle synchronization represents a condition for the successful implementation of the common monetary policy within the Economic and Monetary Union. There is a tight relation between business cycle synchronization and the economic convergence of the Member States of the Monetary Union. Investigating the specialized literature, this study analyses below the factors which influence the synchronization of the economic fluctuations of the economies in the Euro area. A second objective of this study is represented by the pointing out of the evolution of the synchronization process of the business cycle after the adoption of the euro, in the euro area countries by reference to the empiric evidence. The hypothesis of the study states that the introduction of the unique currency in 1999 resulted into the increase of the synchronization degree of the business cycle.

This paper analyzes the construction process of the eurozone as a monetary union without fiscal and banking union. Recent developments in the European currency area are studied, as well as the asymmetric shocks that have hit member economies. Furthermore, the article describes the adjustment followed by peripheral countries until the implementation of the Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program. Finally, the paper studies the different paths that the Eurozone recovery could take from 2015, highlighting its likely survival despite the institutional and economic convergence difficulties that have been found. Este artículo analiza el proceso de gestación y construcción de la eurozona como una unión monetaria sin unión bancaria y fiscal. Se estudian los acontecimientos recientes del área monetaria europea, se analizan los diferentes shocks asimétricos que han golpeado a los países miembros y los procesos de ajuste de las economías periféricas, hasta la puesta en marcha del programa de Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT). Finalmente, se señalan los diferentes caminos que la recuperación de la eurozona podría tomar a partir del año 2015, subrayando su probable supervivencia pese a las dificultades institucionales y de convergencia económica.

The most important trends in the modern economy are convergence – the process of convergence of activities of various economic entities and digitalization. Their interaction creates new opportunities for increasing the competitiveness and efficiency of insurance companies. The purpose of the paper is to identify economic convergence processes taking place on the Russian insurance market, which, when using different digitalization products, lead to new business models of partnership. The results of the conducted empirical analysis confirm the existence of economic convergence processes at all levels (intra-segment, intersegment and inter-sectoral) on the Russian insurance market. The proof of this is the significant reduction in the number of insurers in 2021 to 158, compared to 600 insurers in 2011. Over the past three years, the share of sales of insurance products with the participation of banks acting as intermediaries in the sales of insurance services has increased by 1.5 times. Also, along with insurance companies, health care companies have increasingly become involved in such operations. Digitalization products (information technologies (IT); IT and IT platforms; IT, IT platforms and networks) have a huge impact on the forms of organizing joint business with the participation of insurance companies. Some insurance companies do not provide opportunities to issue an insurance policy online or pay an insurance premium, i.e. they use sites for only minor customer interactions. Most often, Russian insurance companies use mobile applications. The impact of various digitalization products at different levels of economic convergence of insurers initiates multivariate business models of joint business.

Regional Growth; Economic Convergence; Non-linear models JEL: R11, R58 Regional economic development is driven by the accumulation of production factors. More traditional factors like labour and physical capital are accumulated under the law of diminishing returns. This, in turn, allows less developed regions to better perform. Recent branches of theoretical and empirical literature have paid attention to the role of increasing returns in an attempt to explain the persistence in regional economic disparities. Increasing returns are commonly attributed either to the accumulation of non- traditional inputs such as human and knowledge capital or to the presence of local externalities generated by the spatial concentration of economic activities. The aim of the present paper is to address the importance of both decreasing and increasing returns for the economic growth of European regions. While economies will definitively converge in the long-run if production is characterized by decreasing returns, divergence is the likely outcome in presence of increasing returns. As regional growth is probably the result of a combination of both, from a policy perspective it is important to understand where the sooner stops and the latter starts. In this paper the economic performance of 186 European regions is analysed by using the ordinary growth regression approach. An empirical specification which simultaneously accounts for the presence of both decreasing and increasing returns is derived. The study is intended to examine the extent to which regional development originates from the (un)balance between convergence, driven by diminishing returns and divergence, boosted by increasing returns. Results indicate that the accumulation of traditional inputs leads the economic development of less favoured areas while the presence of increasing returns plays a more crucial role in developed regions. More in the detail increasing returns seem to be generated by the accumulation of knowledge and human capital while there is no clear evidence of agglomeration externalities. By using a non-linear specification for the growth equation it is also found evidence of important threshold effects in entering the stage of development characterized by increasing returns. Regional development process is accordingly depicted as a far more complex process than what the simple dualism between increasing and decreasing returns may help to figure out, with very important implications for policy.

This paper analyzes the European innovation framework focusing on four Eurozone candidates: Romania, Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic. In the last decades, almost two-thirds of Europe’s economic growth has been driven by innovation. This idea is supported by impressive scientific findings concerning the correlation between innovation and economic growth. We believe that better innovation performance stimulates economic convergence and in the long term, facilitates the candidates’ transition towards Euro currency adoption. The countries in the study demonstrate a low innovative performance pattern, as our SWOT analysis will show. First, the gross domestic expenditure on research and development levels are far below the Union average. Secondly, there is a lack of cooperation between the academic and business sector, leading to a decreasing number of skilled personnel in the innovation industries. Lastly, these countries are suffering from an incoherent strategy aimed at reducing the productivity gap between domestic and foreign-owned firms. In order for these CEE Eurozone candidates to improve their European Innovation Score and their competitiveness, we recommend increasing investments in R&D, infrastructure, education, healthcare, clean energy and shifting towards higher value-added activities. We are also suggesting supporting digital innovation hubs, the creation of new companies, and facilitating access to finance for small and medium-sized businesses.

The topic of the Intereconomics/CEPS conference for which this paper was written was framed as a question: convergence or divergence in the EU? I am prepared to give an unambiguous answer. That answer is yes.

The increasing pace of achieving socio-economic growth and convergence into developed structures represents the main desire of most countries. Moreover, membership in monetary unions has quite a significant impact on the economies of participating countries, since integration processes have become undoubtedly the undisputed accelerator of convergence and integration catalyst, reflecting on the development of the world economy. The growing intensity of world trade, the ever-deepening division of labor and specialization, international movement of capital and labor mobility as wells as investments into education, research and development, innovations are among the factors that lead to the creation of increasingly closer ties between economies, deepening their mutual dependence, further reflected in knowledge-based societies. Thus, the close ties between national economies themselves represent a further incentive for more intensive cooperation through the different stages of economic integration. International economic integration is an objective to promote a gradual process of linking and connecting existing economic units, i.e. national economies to the greater interconnected units in the global economy. The aim of our research paper, by using the methods of analysis and comparison, is to closely present the issue of monetary integration, focusing on the impact of monetary integration on countries’ economy, resulting in the issue of benefits and costs of the countries’ entry into the monetary union, associated with initial economic shocks.

This paper tries to investigate some of the major factors considered to be of importance for economic development. Five countries from Asia (China, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and Thailand) and five from Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela) with the addition of Turkey, believed to resemble these Latin American countries in her development experience, were examined by a panel regression analysis. The model included seven cross-sectional variables (educational expenditures, external debt, gross capital formation, savings, GDP deflator, manufacturing value added and trade openness) for 21 years from 1992 to 2012 inclusive. The test results indicate that the most important factor influencing the economic growth of these countries was their external debt which possibly prevents or delays the convergence of the borrowing countries’ incomes with those of the high income countries. The gross capital formation and the manufacturing value-added variables were also significant, though, to a lesser extent. - Questo studio ha lo scopo di esaminare alcuni dei maggiori fattori considerati importanti per lo sviluppo economico. Cinque paesi asiatici (Cina, Indonesia, Malesia, Corea del Sud e Tailandia) e cinque dell’America Latina (Argentina, Brasile, Colombia, Messico e Venezuela) più la Turchia, in quanto la sua esperienza di sviluppo è ritenuta simile ai paesi del sud America presi in considerazione, sono stati esaminati attraverso una analisi panel regression. Il modello ha incluso sette variabili trasversali (spesa per l’istruzione, debito estero, formazione del capitale lordo, risparmio, deflazione del PIL, valore aggiunto della produzione e apertura commerciale) per un periodo di 21 anni, 1992-2012. I risultati dei test indicano che il fattore più importante che influenza la crescita economica di questi paesi è il loro debito estero, che talvolta previene o ritarda la convergenza dei redditi dei paesi debitori con quelli dei paesi ad alto reddito. La formazione del capitale lordo e il valore aggiunto del settore manifatturiero risultano anch’essi significativi, seppure in misura inferiore.

European regions experience accelerating ageing, but there is substantial regional variation in the process. This paper examines the effect of this variation on regional economic cohesion in Europe. We measure the effect of convergence or divergence in the share of the working age population on convergence or divergence in economies of NUTS 2 regions. The effect of convergence or divergence in ageing on economic convergence or divergence has been smaller than the effect of changes in productivity and labour force participation; yet, this effect was still quite substantial. Convergence of ageing leads only to economic convergence when the share of the working age population in rich regions exceeds that in poor regions and the former regions experience a substantial decline in the share of the working age population or the latter regions experience an increase. Our empirical analysis shows that in the period 2003-2012 an inverse relationship between convergence in ageing and economic convergence was the rule rather than the exception.

In 1961, in the earlier stage of the European integration, Bela Balassa proposed a five successive phase model about it as a foresight. Today, the half century experience on integration and corresponding literature issued just lets us see rather two big phases (instead of five). The one would be the incipient integration, that came to enlarge the economic openness and internationalization and shaped on: (i) free trade area (FTA) and (ii) customs union; the other would be the advanced integration, in which internationalization would be replaced by the unique-common market and other two commandments would replace or just reshape the older FTA and customs union into: (iii) economic convergence and (iv) optimal currency area. This paper limits its focus on the economic convergence, its current description-analysis in the literature and condition inside the EU.

This paper provides an analysis of absolute economic convergence among the group of ten new member states (NMS-10) that entered European Union in the year 2004. Convergence dynamics is estimated for the period from 1997 to 2012 as well as for two sub-periods: 1997-2007 and 2007-2012. The analysis covers aspects of sigma- (If-) and beta- (Î2-) convergence. Convergence is first estimated by testing for panel unit root in GDP per capita series and then by using standard cross-section equations for absolute convergence. Different time intervals were used so that the analysis could capture the impact of the global economic crisis on long-term convergence performance among the NMS-10 countries. Our results show that this group of countries formed one homogenous convergence club during the entire observed period and achieved high convergence rates in the period before the crisis, while the level of homogeneity in the NMS-10 convergence club was significantly diminished in the period after beginning of the crisis.

Summary In this paper we use principal components augmented regressions (PCARs), partly in conjunction with model averaging, to determine the variables relevant for economic growth. The use of PCARs allows to effectively tackle two major problems that the empirical growth literature faces: (i) the uncertainty about the relevance of variables and (ii) the availability of data sets with the number of variables of the same order as the number of observations. The use of PCARs furthermore implies that the computational cost is, compared to standard approaches used in the literature, negligible. The proposed methodology is applied to three data sets, including the Sala-i-Martin, Doppelhofer, and Miller (2004) and Fernandez, Ley, and Steel (2001) data as well as an extended version of the former. Key economic variables are found to be significantly related to economic growth, which demonstrates the relevance of the proposed methodology for empirical growth research.

In this paper, we study the approach level of Maghreb's Economies towards West European Countries CEEC towards Euro zone. To this end, we use a Structural VAR model to identify supply and demand shocks. We also use Principal Component Analysis to look for dynamic convergence. Our results show a differenciated approach level of Maghreb's economies towards Europe: Tunisia's and Morocco's, to a lesser extent, economies are on the way of convergence and on a level comparable to that of CEEC; Algeria and Libya lag far behind that convergence level inspite of their capacities. This result confirms the important role played by bilateral trade particularly in manufactured products. Tunisa's and Morocco's convergence is also a result of a shift from food and textile industries to medium and hig technological industry., Dans ce papier, nous étudions le niveau de rapprochement des économies du Maghreb vers les économies de l'Europe de l'Ouest. Nous faisons également une comparaison avec le niveau de convergence des Pays d'Europe Centrale et Orientale PECO-5 vers les pays de la zone euro. Pour ce faire, nous utilisons une modélisation VAR Structurelle pour l'identification des chocs d'offre et des chocs de demande. Nous faisons également appel à l'Analyse en composante Principale ACP dans l'étude de la dynamique de convergence. Nos résultats montrent un niveau différencié de rapprochement des économies des pays du Maghreb vers l'Europe : la Tunisie et le Maroc dans une moindre mesure, sont sur le sentier de la convergence et à un niveau qui se rapproche de celui des PECO-5 ; l'Algérie et la Libye restent très éloignés de la convergence en dépit de leur capacités. Ce résultat confirme le rôle important joué par le commerce bilatéral et plus particulièrement celui des produits manufacturés. La convergence de la Tunisie et du Maroc est également le fruit d'une déspécialisation de production des secteurs agroalimentaire et textile vers des secteurs moyennement et hautement technologique

This paper analyze the dynamic economic performance of the Italian regions during the period 1970-2004. The measure of economic performance is given by the level and the growth rates of per capita GDP. Using the concept of economic regime, we introduce a notion of distance between the dynamical paths of the Italian regions. Afterwards, a Minimal Spanning Tree and a Hierarchical Tree are constructed from time series in order to assess the existence of groups of regions sharing similar economic performance. Two main clusters are identified, representing high performance and low performance regions, alongside other two small clusters displaying regions with similar dynamic behaviour. The high performance cluster comprises mainly regions from the north, showing the presence of agglomeration externalities. Turning to the evolution of clusters, we see a similar path until 1975, after which the two groups start to slightly diverge. Studying the evolution of each cluster's diameter we find substantial convergence within the two groups. Splitting the sample into two periods (1975-1993 and 1994-2005) the hypothesis of two performance clubs is confirmed. The club shift of some regions hints a strong effect on regional economic dynamics of the Italian 1994 crisis. The final analysis of the distance between the two clusters show that in the first period (1975-1993) the distance between the two group was constant, while in the second one (1994-2005) it has increased.

This paper compares the long run prediction of convergence clubs introduced by Quah (1996 and 1997) with the actual observed dynamics of the Italian regions during the period 1970-2004. Economic dynamics is described by the evolution per capita GDP and different notions of distance are introduced to compare the trajectories of the regions. In addition, by means of hierarchical clustering methodologies the set of economies are segmented. By using the average distance, the study identifies two main performance clubs resembling the long run prediction of two converge clubs. On the other hand, the distance correlation shows different co-movements between members of the same cluster, indicating a variety of responses to external shocks. In particular the average distance identifies a clear division between a high performance club consisting of regions from the Center North, and a low performance club composed by regions from the South and islands. The presence of a cluster composed by center north regions is substantially confirmed by the distance correlation analysis, suggesting an homogeneous response to external shock. By contrast Southern regions display the same dynamical evolution but difference in co-movements. Our analysis provides hints about the fundamentals that link the regions in their process of divergence. In fact the performance clubs pattern we discovered reflects the distribution of economic activities as well as the structural attributes of the regional economies.

International audience; This paper develops a methodology to measure the degree of economic integration between nations that are members of an integrated area. We show that a fully integrated economic area (IEA) is characterized by three properties regarding the distribution of member shares of total IEA output and total IEA stocks of physical and human capital. We then show that the expected distribution of member shares within a fully IEA is a harmonic series, with the share distribution depending only on the number of IEA members. This property is then used to develop a composite indicator of the degree of economic integration within an IEA that indicates the distance between the theoretical and actual distribution of shares: the closer is the actual distribution to the expected distribution, the greater the degree of integration. We empirically compute our degree of integration for US states, and alternative regional trading agreements (e.g., EU countries, MERCOSUR, Bangkok Agreement, etc.) and a "world" comprising 64 countries.

The sustainable economic welfare of the new EU Member States is reflected in the convergence process. The paper is dedicated to the investigation of the convergence between Ukraine, Baltic countries and other EC countries within the various indices of the social-economic development. The system of economic growth models is analyzed: the convergence is theoretically grounded on the basis of Solow model, and thus the methods of empiric control of convergence concept are determined. The empiric analysis of convergence processes between above mentioned countries showed that the most spreading method of convergence presence in the rate of economic growth is the reduction of the inequality in the GDP per capita level among the countries groups.

This discussion paper led to a publication in the Journal of Applied Econometrics. Vol. 19, issue 5, pages 611-636. Convergence in gross domestic product series of five European countriesis empirically identified using multivariate time series models that arebased on unobserved components with dynamic converging properties.We define convergence in terms of a decrease in dispersion over timeand model this decrease via mechanisms that allow for gradualreductions in the ranks of covariance matrices associated with thedisturbance vectors driving the unobserved components of the model.The inclusion of such convergence mechanisms within the formulation ofunobserved components makes the identification of various types ofconvergence possible.The common converging component model isestimated for the per capita gross domestic product of five Europeancountries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands. It is foundthat convergence features in trends and cycles are present and areassociated with some key events in the history of European integration.

In this paper we investigate the implications of EMU enlargement from a political economy perspective. We argue that a high degree of convergence of the candidate countries prior to EMU accession is an important req-uisite. Otherwise, as a result of a sharp increase in economic dispersion, public support for European monetary policy is likely to decrease, and external pressure on the European Central Bank will mount.

This paper tries to assess how costly it would be for the CEECs to peg their exchange rates to the Euro. We use three types of criteria: institutional (the Maastricht criteria); some measure of real convergence; and the Optimal Currency Area criteria. The institutional criteria seem to be an important impediment to an 'immediate' accession. There is also a lot more to do in terms of real convergence. Finally, the correlations of industrial production and unemployment cycles in the CEECs and the EU, or other reference countries, such as Germany, Greece, France and Portugal point towards a deeper integration of the CEECs with Germany than with the EU. This reflects the old ties Germany had and still has with Eastern countries and the likely key role Germany is going to play in the process of EU enlargement to Eastern Europe.

Economic and monetary reunification in Germany has proved to be more expensive than previously thought - and not just for the Germans. If a `Mezzogiorno' problem of continuing fiscal transfers to the East and possible migration flows westwards are to be avoided, there must be convergence in productivity levels. This paper analyses possible convergence paths and the policy regimes which accelerate convergence. The intention is to illustrate the (albeit less extreme) problems facing a European monetary union of asymmetric and incompletely converged economies. Working from first principles, or with the aid of an econometric model, shows that convergence sufficient to avoid a `Mezzogiorno' problem is likely to be slow: perhaps 30-40 years in the German case despite very fast growth in the East. Second, it is not clear that the process is incentive compatible: a substantial part of the servicing and subsidizing costs must be paid by other (non-German) economies in the union without any obvious compensating benefits. Third, to reduce the need for continuing transfers actually requires a policy which promotes price and wage flexibility in the depressed region. This appears to run counter to current market integration in Europe. Such `unpleasant arithmetic' is an important contribution to the monetary union debate, because without it the smooth running of a union of incompletely converged economies will certainly be compromised.

This paper presents the analysis of sigma (σ) and beta (β) convergences of per capita GDP among the 10 European countries which accessed the European Union in 2004. Our results confirm the existence of both types of convergence in the second half of the 1990s and the 2000s. Generally, the poorer and new EU member states grew faster than the richer new EU member states. As a result, the income gap between these two groups of countries has narrowed although it still remains quite large. The convergence occurred at the rate of 4.2% during the period 1992-2006 and 7.0% and 9.6% during the sub periods 1995-2006 and 2002-2006, respectively.

The main objective of this paper is to determine whether tourism contributes to the economic convergence in the EU member states. The starting point of the analysis is the theoretical concepts of σ-convergence and (conditional) β-convergence. For the purpose of examining the relationship between tourism and σ-convergence in the long and short term, the cointegration test is used. Additionally, panel analysis is used for testing the model of conditional convergence. In this model, tourism as a conditional factor is operationalised by monetary indicators (consumption components and capital investments) as well as by a non-monetary one (direct employment) based on the tourism satellite account methodological framework. The model also tests a range of economic, social and ecological impacts on tourism and the economic convergence. The results proved that, although there is a long-term and short-term relationship between tourism and the economic growth convergence, tourism does not contribute to the economic convergence in the European Union member states, at least not to the extent that was expected.