IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/chb/bcchwp/176.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is There Enough Evidence Against Absolute Convergence?

Author

Listed:
  • Rómulo A. Chumacero

Abstract

This paper analyzes whether or not the econometric methods usually applied to test for absolute convergence have provided this hypothesis a fair. I show that traditional (absolute and conditional) convergence tests are not consistent with even the simplest model that displays convergence. Furthermore, claims of divergence on the grounds of bimodalities in the distribution of GDP per capita can be made consistent with models in which neither divergence nor twin peaks are present in the long run.

Suggested Citation

  • Rómulo A. Chumacero, 2002. "Is There Enough Evidence Against Absolute Convergence?," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 176, Central Bank of Chile.
    • Handle: RePEc:chb:bcchwp:176
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bcentral.cl/documents/33528/133326/DTBC_176.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sebastian Edwards & I. Igal Magendzo, 2003. "Dollarization and economic performance: What do we really know?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(4), pages 351-363.
    2. Robert J. Barro, 2013. "Inflation and Economic Growth," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 14(1), pages 121-144, May.
    3. Easterly, William & Kremer, Michael & Pritchett, Lant & Summers, Lawrence H., 1993. "Good policy or good luck?: Country growth performance and temporary shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 459-483, December.
    4. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    5. William Easterly & Ross Levine, 2002. "It´s Not Factor Accumulation: Stylized Facts and Growth Models," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 3, pages 061-114, Central Bank of Chile.
    6. Durlauf, Steven N. & Quah, Danny T., 1999. "The new empirics of economic growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 235-308, Elsevier.
    7. Charles I. Jones, 1995. "Time Series Tests of Endogenous Growth Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(2), pages 495-525.
    8. Harald Beyer & Rodrigo Vergara, 2002. "Productivity and Economic Growth: The Case of Chile," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 10, pages 309-342, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Bernard, Andrew B. & Durlauf, Steven N., 1996. "Interpreting tests of the convergence hypothesis," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 71(1-2), pages 161-173.
    10. Robert M. Solow, 1956. "A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(1), pages 65-94.
    11. Quah, Danny, 1993. "Empirical cross-section dynamics in economic growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 426-434, April.
    12. Quah, Danny, 1997. "Empirics for growth and distribution," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 2138, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Sylvester C.W. Eijffinger, 2003. "The federal design of a central bank in a monetary union: The case of the European system of central banks," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(4), pages 365-380.
    14. Durlauf, Steven N & Johnson, Paul A, 1995. "Multiple Regimes and Cross-Country Growth Behaviour," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(4), pages 365-384, Oct.-Dec..
    15. Chumacero Rómulo A., 2006. "On the Power of Absolute Convergence Tests," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-25, May.
    16. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September.
    17. Cho, Dongchul, 1996. "An Alternative Interpretation of Conditional Convergence Results," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(4), pages 669-681, November.
    18. Solange Berstein, 2002. "Two-Part Tariff Competition With Switching Costs and Sales Agents," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 162, Central Bank of Chile.
    19. Bruce E. Hansen, 2000. "Sample Splitting and Threshold Estimation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(3), pages 575-604, May.
    20. Xavier X. Sala-i-Martin, 1997. "I Just Ran Four Million Regressions," NBER Working Papers 6252, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Danny Quah, 1997. "Empirics for Growth and Distribution," CEP Discussion Papers dp0324, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    22. Baumol, William J, 1986. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: What the Long-run Data Show," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1072-1085, December.
    23. Jose De Gregorio, 2002. "Macroeconomic Management in Emerging Economies and the International Financial Architecture," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 163, Central Bank of Chile.
    24. Durlauf, Steven N., 2001. "Manifesto for a growth econometrics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 65-69, January.
    25. Kocherlakota, Narayana R & Yi, Kei-Mu, 1997. "Is There Endogenous Long-Run Growth? Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(2), pages 235-262, May.
    26. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-183, May.
    27. Philippe Aghion & Peter Howitt, 1997. "Endogenous Growth Theory," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011662, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pablo M. Pincheira, 2014. "Convergence and Long-Run Uncertainty," Revista de Analisis Economico – Economic Analysis Review, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business, vol. 29(1), pages 17-52, April.
    2. Roberto Duncan & J. Rodrigo Fuentes, 2005. "Convergencia Regional en Chile: Nuevos Tests, Viejos Resultados," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 313, Central Bank of Chile.
    3. Mr. Bennett W Sutton & Mrs. Genevieve M Lindow & Maria Isabel Serra & Mr. Gustavo Ramirez & Maria Fernanda Pazmino, 2006. "Regional Convergence in Latin America," IMF Working Papers 2006/125, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Solange Berstein & Alejandro Micco, 2002. "Turnover and Regulation: The Chilean Pension Fund Industry," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 180, Central Bank of Chile.
    5. Grafström, Jonas & Jaunky, Vishal, 2017. "Convergence of Incentive Capabilities within the European Union," Ratio Working Papers 301, The Ratio Institute.
    6. Jaunky, Vishal Chandr, 2013. "Divergence in technical efficiency of electric utilities: Evidence from the SAPP," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 419-430.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chumacero Rómulo A., 2006. "On the Power of Absolute Convergence Tests," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(2), pages 1-25, May.
    2. Paul Johnson & Chris Papageorgiou, 2020. "What Remains of Cross-Country Convergence?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 129-175, March.
    3. Durlauf, Steven N. & Quah, Danny T., 1999. "The new empirics of economic growth," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 4, pages 235-308, Elsevier.
    4. Rómulo Chumacero, 2002. "Reviewing the Evidence against Absolute Convergence," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Norman Loayza & Raimundo Soto & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series Editor) (ed.),Economic Growth: Sources, Trends, and Cycles, edition 1, volume 6, chapter 4, pages 115-134, Central Bank of Chile.
    5. Capolupo, Rosa, 2009. "The New Growth Theories and Their Empirics after Twenty Years," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 3, pages 1-72.
    6. Semmler, Willi & Ofori, Marvin, 2007. "On poverty traps, thresholds and take-offs," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 1-26, March.
    7. Maasoumi, Esfandiar & Racine, Jeff & Stengos, Thanasis, 2007. "Growth and convergence: A profile of distribution dynamics and mobility," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(2), pages 483-508, February.
    8. Fischer, Manfred M. & Stirböck, Claudia, 2005. "Regional Income Convergence in Europe, 1995-2000: A Spatial Econometric Perspective," MPRA Paper 77784, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Steven N. Durlauf & Andros Kourtellos & Chih Ming Tan, 2008. "Empirics of Growth and Development," Chapters, in: Amitava Krishna Dutt & Jaime Ros (ed.), International Handbook of Development Economics, Volumes 1 & 2, volume 0, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Cem Ertur & Julie Le Gallo & Catherine Baumont, 2006. "The European Regional Convergence Process, 1980-1995: Do Spatial Regimes and Spatial Dependence Matter?," International Regional Science Review, , vol. 29(1), pages 3-34, January.
    11. Brock,W.A. & Durlauf,S.N., 2000. "Growth economics and reality," Working papers 24, Wisconsin Madison - Social Systems.
    12. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2011. "Econometrics For Grumblers: A New Look At The Literature On Cross‐Country Growth Empirics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(1), pages 109-155, February.
    13. Giovanni Caggiano & Leone Leonida, 2009. "International output convergence: evidence from an autocorrelation function approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 139-162.
    14. Markus Eberhardt & Francis Teal, 2008. "Modeling Technology and Technological Change in Manufacturing: How do Countries Differ?," CSAE Working Paper Series 2008-12, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    15. Peter Mulder & Henri Groot, 2007. "Sectoral Energy- and Labour-Productivity Convergence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 36(1), pages 85-112, January.
    16. ArdIc, Oya PInar, 2006. "The gap between the rich and the poor: Patterns of heterogeneity in the cross-country data," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 538-555, May.
    17. Lehmann, Hartmut & Silvagni, Maria Giulia, 2013. "Is There Convergence of Russia's Regions? Exploring the Empirical Evidence: 1995–2010," IZA Discussion Papers 7603, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Chang-Yang Lee, 2012. "Learning-by-doing in R&D, knowledge threshold, and technological divide," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 109-132, January.
    19. Sergio J. Rey & Mark V. Janikas, 2003. "Convergence and space," Urban/Regional 0311002, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 16 Nov 2003.
    20. Alberto Franco Pozzolo, 2004. "Endogenous growth in open economies: a surveys," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 527, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:chb:bcchwp:176. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alvaro Castillo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bccgvcl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.