This article aims to test the conjecture advanced in a recent work by Bianchi and Menegatti (Appl Econ Lett 14:963–967, 2007) that usual beta-convergence panel regressions may produce biased evidence, due to their inability to distinguish between actual catching-up across countries and decreasing growth rates over time within countries. The test considers different sub-groups in a dataset of 72 countries for the period 1970–2000 and introduces both human capital and proxies for technological differences into the analysis. The results confirm the conjecture that traditional evidence about beta-convergence may be misleading; they also show that catching-up across countries is weaker than usually claimed and that this process occurred only in some sub-groups of countries.
Pitfalls in Estimating Beta-Convergence by means of Panel Data: an Empirical Test
BIANCHI, CARLUCCIO;MENEGATTI, MARIO
2009-01-01
Abstract
This article aims to test the conjecture advanced in a recent work by Bianchi and Menegatti (Appl Econ Lett 14:963–967, 2007) that usual beta-convergence panel regressions may produce biased evidence, due to their inability to distinguish between actual catching-up across countries and decreasing growth rates over time within countries. The test considers different sub-groups in a dataset of 72 countries for the period 1970–2000 and introduces both human capital and proxies for technological differences into the analysis. The results confirm the conjecture that traditional evidence about beta-convergence may be misleading; they also show that catching-up across countries is weaker than usually claimed and that this process occurred only in some sub-groups of countries.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
