Technological Catch-up or Neoclassical Convergence? Identifying the Channels of Convergence for Italian Regions

We investigate whether Italian regions have converged in terms of output per worker because of physical capital accumulation, human capital accumulation or thanks to technological catch-up. In order to identify channels of convergence we adopt the methodology recently proposed by Wong (2007) and Feyrer (2007) which combine growth accounting with convergence regressions. Merging two datasets of regional economic accounts (ISTAT and CRENoS) to obtain longer time series, we show that convergence has been realized mainly thanks to technological catch-up and, to some extent, through human capital accumulation. On the other hand, physical capital has been a factor of divergence. These results are robust to model specifications, sets of data and alternative assumptions on parameters value.