Convergencia: Un análisis conjunto de los sectores. Aplicación al caso de las regiones españolas

In this article we study labour productivity convergence among regions using sectoral data. Instead of working with the sectors separately, as is common in the related literature, we present a joint analysis for all sectors. This kind of analysis requires to take into account the relative prices of the goods produced in each sector, so we introduce the notion of "IEPR productivity", that results from multiplying constant price productivity by a relative price index. We also study the conditions under which the two components of IEPR productivity evolve inversely. Our empirical analysis, which considers sectors by regions ("activities") for the Spanish economy (1955-95), concludes that dispersion decreases (s convergence) and that the b convergence hypothesis is acceptable, both under the case of non-conditioned convergence and including sectoral and regional dummies. These results could be related with wage convergence or convergence in elasticity of the production function among activities. We also conclude that the sectors analysed show a differentiated behaviour