Economic convergence of the Eastern Partnership countries towards the EU-13.

The aim of the paper is to analyse if the Eastern Partnership countries converge towards the new Member States of the European Union, the EU-13. Beta convergence, which is based on the neoclassical growth theory, tests the hypothesis that poor countries tend to grow faster than rich countries, in per capita terms. The analysed period is 2004-2016, with two sub-periods: 2004-2008 and 2009-2013. The subdivision is made in order to test the research hypotheses. The first hypothesis is that the recent financial crisis negatively affected the absolute convergence process among the analysed countries. The second hypothesis is that the recent financial crisis negatively affected the conditional convergence process among the countries. The empirical findings support the economic convergence hypothesis, and the convergence rates range 1.6%-3.8%. The results show that the recent financial crisis negatively affected only absolute convergence. Negative effects of the crisis on conditional convergence are not confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]