fiscal convergence criteria written into the Treaty of Maastricht and its Protocols. In order to qualify for full membership …

Recent estimates of convergence equations using panel data techniques tend to produce theoretically unpalatable results … Spanish regions, it is found that explicitly allowing for short-term noise reduces the estimated convergence rate to values …

membership. It should also be sufficient. 3) Convergence, prior to the adoption of the euro, of an EMU candidate’s inflation rate … to its euro area equilibrium inflation rate is helpful but not essential. 4) Real convergence is irrelevant for EMU … fiscal sustainability (and preferably also inflation convergence), the EMU candidate should be given a firm date and …

This paper surveys the recent literature on convergence across countries and regions. We discuss the main convergence … exploring the role of alternative convergence mechanisms and the possible shortcomings of panel data techniques for convergence …

This paper analyses the sources of post-war growth and convergence in the OECD using an extension of Mankiw, Romer and …. Technological catch-up is found to be very fast and seems to have played an important role in OECD convergence during the first half … of the sample period. The exhaustion of this effect, moreover, may help explain the slowdown of growth and convergence …