While the debate over whether and why convergence between national productivity rates between countries over time has occurred is a lively one, the discussion has largely ignored two issues: the development of a generalized theoretical model of cross-country growth patterns that could explain...

Two fundamental issues which have been ignored in the convergence debate are addressed in this paper. First, there has been little attention paid to the development of a general model which is able to explain convergence or divergence. Second, in the rush to put data to a convergence hypothesis,...

Paul Krugman was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics 'for his analysis of trade patterns and location of economic activity' (http://nobelprize.org). This article assesses the importance of Krugman's contributions to both the state of our knowledge and methodology as a profession. The focus...