The process of European integration has introduced a valuable empirical example on the impact of economic integration on income convergence. Many empirical papers confirm the income convergence within the new member states and between the new and old members. At the same time it is found that...

Discussion on the possibilities for and barriers to income convergence and catch-up growth is at the heart of the debate on European regional economic policy. This study presents an empirical analysis of the determinants of regional productivity growth in Europe, using the most recent Cambridge...

This paper proposes a fixed-effect panel methodology that enables us to simultaneously take into account both TFP convergence and the traditional neoclassical-type of convergence. We analyse a sample of 199 European regions between 1985 and 2006 and find the absence of an overall process of TFP...

We use a dynamic model to study the effects of technology and learning on the long run economic growth rates of a leading and a lagging region. New technologies are developed in the leading region but technological improvements in the lagging region are the result of learning from the leading...

This research revisits the issue of economic growth determinants in developing countries with a focus on international integration variables. Four alternative variables are tested, namely, export growth, trade openness, export diversification, and foreign direct investment (FDI), in a single...

The balance of payments can act as a constraint to the rate of growth of output, on putting a limit to the growth in the level of demand to which supply can adapt. This effect might be even stronger for regional economies, presumably more integrated among them. In this paper, we examine this...

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...

The aim of the paper is to test the Benhabib and Spiegel (2005) productivity (TFP) catch-up framework on European regions. Differences in the stock of human capital across regions are hypothesized to be the cause of differences in the speed by which follower regions converge and catch-up with...

It is quite common in convergence analyses across regions that data exhibit strong spatial dependence. While the literature adopting the regression approach is now fully aware that neglecting this feature may lead to inaccurate results and has therefore suggested a number of statistical tools...

In this paper an attempt is made to assess the hypothesis of re- gional club-convergence, using a spatial panel analysis combined with B-Splines. In this context, a 'convergence-club' is conceived as a group of regions that in the long-run move towards steady-state equilib- rium, approximated in...