Convergence of State Per Capita Incomes: An Examination of Its Sources

This paper examines the sources of regional convergence in per capita incomes over the last four decades. Growth in per capita income is decomposed into two major components: (1) growth in employment rates and (2) growth in wage rates per worker. Using annual data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the paper finds that the observed convergence in per capita incomes of sates was largely due to convergence in employment rates; wage rates either did not converge or did so weakly. Employing an instrumental variables technique, the paper finds that rapid growth in the work force with relatively low levels of human capital in initially poor states was a depressing influence on wage rate growth in these states, and was a major reason for the relatively slow convergence in per capita incomes.     

Revisiting income convergence in Turkey: Are there convergence clubs?

This paper investigates club convergence in per capita income across 81 NUTS‐III regions in Turkey over the 1987–2017 period using the procedure suggested by Phillips and Sul. Based on a nonlinear factor model that allows for transitional heterogeneity, our econometric approach enables us to test the presence of convergence clusters and to examine their transitional behavior. We obtain strong evidence that there is no absolute or conditional convergence but convergence clubs across Turkish regions: five clubs in the first period covering 1987–2001 and six clubs in the second period covering 2004–2017. The geographical distribution of clubs suggests a clear separation between the eastern and the western regions of Turkey for both periods. While geography may be destiny, results from an ordered logit model reveal that initial income per capita, human capital, and total credits are the most important determinants of convergence clubs in Turkey.     

Have Per Capita Earnings and Income Converged across New England?

ABSTRACT This article describes an analysis of recent change in both per capita earnings from employment and per capita income (including that from transfers and nonearnings sources) across New England's counties between 1970 and 2000. Breaking the period into three decade‐long spans (1970–1980, 1980–1990, and 1990–2000), statistical evidence is strong that the region experienced absolute divergence in both earnings and income. However, further statistical analysis that incorporates cost of living, human capital, and other control factors indicates that conditional convergence at the county scale in New England was ongoing rapidly between 1970 and 1990 and appears to have been achieved by 2000.     

Endogenous Processes in European Regional Growth: Convergence and Policy

The traditional empirical approaches to the analysis of economic growth,cross‐section and panel data regressions are substantially uninformative withrespect to the issue of convergence. Whether national or regional economies appear to converge in terms of per capita income or productivity levels (the so‐called β‐convergence) critically depends on the way in which the empirical model is specified. Traditional specifications witness a disproportionate presence of proxies for forces leading towards divergence among the conditioning variables. It is therefore hardly surprising that these analyses find a positive and statistically significant value for the estimate of the speed of convergence. A more constructive use of cross‐section and panel data regressions is in the analysis of the determinants of growth. The present paper therefore builds on recent work on the role of different growth determinants (Cheshire and Carbonaro 1996) and analyses the growth performance of 122 Functional Urban Regions (FURs)over the period 1978–1994. This model explicitly recognizes growth as amultivariate process. In this new formulation it incorporates a spatialized adaptation of Romer's endogenous growth model (Romer 1990), developing the work of Magrini (Magrini 1997). Magrini's model originated from the view that technological knowledge has a very important tacit component that has been neglected in formal theories of endogenous growth. This tacit component, being the non‐written personal heritage of individuals or groups, is naturally concentrated in space. As a result, technological change is profoundly influenced by the interaction between firms and their local environments. The present paper reports the results of the estimation of a fully specified model of regional growth in per capita income. Particular attention is played to the role of research and development (R&D) activities, and to the influence of factors such as Universities that shape the local environments and have important policy implications. These results are then applied to quantifying the scope for policy to influence the growth process. Several simulations are presented deriving alternative growth outcomes across European regions that would have been obtained if those variables over which policy might have control—including the contribution of human capital—had had alternative values reflecting the realistic scope of policy makers' influence. The implications for convergence/divergence in regional per capita income levels are then analyzed using a Markov chain approach (Quah 1993 and 1996; Magrini 1999).     

Spatial and Temporal Metropolitan and Nonmetropolitan Trends in Income Inequality

ABSTRACT Overall total inequality for state per capita personal income as well as total inequality for nonmetropolitan and metropolitan areas are examined for the period 1969 to 1995. In each case, the total inequality was partitioned into between-and within-region variations. Statistical testing shows no perceptible differences between the major categories, nonmetropolitan and metropolitan. Further, this study uses a model to test for narrowing of income gaps within these categories. It was found that for both nonmetropolitan and metropolitan, a general trend toward equality was evidenced during the early 1970s decade. In that decade, the nonmetropolitan areas’incomes approached the metropolitan areas’incomes but showed significant divergences in the 1980s, followed again by a narrowing of the gaps in the 1990s.     

Regional Convergence in Mexico, 1970–2005: A Panel Data Approach

This paper empirically analyzes regional disparity in terms of convergence of per capita income across Mexican states for the period 1970–2005. In particular, this study extends the conventional cross‐sectional conditional β‐convergence analysis of the existing literatures on Mexico to panel data analysis, and focuses on whether the convergence performance varies between the pre‐ and post‐economic liberalization periods. When unobservable state‐specific effects are controlled by the panel data technique, the estimated coefficients show significant conditional β‐convergence, even after economic liberalization, but with a lower speed than before economic liberalization.     

Remittances sent by a growing altruistic diaspora: How do they grow over time?

Abstract: This paper investigates theoretically the time pattern of remittances sent home by a growing diaspora of emigrants who are motivated by altruism rather than pure self‐interest. Migrants are assumed to care about the consumption of home‐resident family members as well as their own welfare. Hence, remittance effort will depend upon the ratios of per capita income and income growth rates between the host country and the home country. Effort will depend also on the number of emigrants sending back remittances to each home‐resident household. In general, the effect of remittances is to sustain growth of consumption per capita in the home country above the growth rate of per capita GDP. A priori, there is no necessary tendency for remittance effort to rise or fall over time. Falling remittance amounts per migrant may occur as the diaspora grows relative to the home population, but should not be treated as evidence of so‐called ‘remittance fatigue’. A number of feasible scenarios are traced out, and some opportunities are identified to use statistical tests to adjudicate between self‐interest and altruism as motives for sending remittances.     

Interstate Differences in State and Local Revenues

The focus of this study is the examination of the interstate differences in per capita state and local revenues. On one side free competition among states is supposed to keep the interstate differences in per capita state and local revenues at a minimum level. On the other side, the interstate differences in variables like income and taste of consumers, natural conditions (like climate), state's size (scale effect), and others may explain the existing interstate differences in per capita state and local revenues. The empirical results indicate that we successfully explained over 90 percent of the variance in per capita state and local revenues. Additional empirical results reveal that the federal government distributes money among states in a discriminate fashion based on region and size.     

Great Recession and club convergence in Europe: A cross-country,cross-region panel analysis (2000–2015)

The paper aims at investigating the impact of the Great Recession on per capita GDP convergence process across European regions and countries. Using the time-varying factor model developed by Phillips and Sul for the period 2000–2015 and two different merging procedures to identify clubs, we provide evidence of the diverging impact of the Great Recession “between” the higher and the lower convergence clubs at both regional and country levels as well as of the strengthening of the convergence process “within” most clubs. In addition, we add further evidence to the common belief of a “multi-speed” Europe by contrasting Eastern European countries' and regions' behavior vis-à-vis original European members' one, and by identifying the factors that affect club membership and resilience to the recent economic downturn. We find that the membership in the higher clubs and resilience to the Great Recession are positively affected by the presence of several local-specific factors and macroeconomic characteristics.     

中国农业EKC研究：以化肥为例

【研究目的】针对我国农业经济发展与环境关系的演变问题,开展农业环境库兹尼茨曲线研究,验证农业经济增长与农用化肥使用量间的倒U型曲线关系。【方法】本文采用非线性回归的方法,对我国及31个省市1952到2007年间的化肥、人口、农业总产值数据进行实证分析;【结果】结果表明,除少数省市外,我国和大部分省市的化肥投入量无论在人均还是总量上都与人均农业总产值间存在着倒U型曲线关系,且均已出现拐点并跨越峰值,说明我国化肥的投入量已出现整体的下降趋势。而部分出现倒U的省市化肥投入量还将持续增长一段时间。【结论】总的来说,我国化肥投入为增产手段的趋势已基本得到了扭转,人们消费行为和农业生产方式的转变是主要因素。     

European Regional Convergence Revisited: A Weighted Least Squares Approach

A plethora of past studies have concluded that unconditional β‐convergence is present in a broad sample of regions, implying that poor regions grow faster than rich ones. All these econometric studies tend to overlook the relative importance or size of each region in the national setting, treating all regional observations as equal. However, this assumption might lead to unrealistic or misleading results. Convergence analysis could be more meaningful if it included a weighting mechanism taking into account the size of regions. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether the inclusion of a weighting mechanism in β‐convergence analysis, giving more weight to larger regions and less to smaller ones, can result in sharply different implications for the regional convergence‐divergence process. For this reason, both unweighted ordinary least squares (OLS) and weighted least squares estimators are used in the analysis of regional (intra‐national) convergence within 10 European Union (EU) countries over the period 1990–2000. The comparison between the two methods reveals that when regions are appropriately weighted for their size, intra‐national divergence, rather than convergence found with the OLS approach, seems to be the dominant experience in the EU.     

Behind the Pan‐European Convergence Path: The Role of Innovation,Specialisation and Socio‐economic Factors

The paper analyses the determinants of regional disparities in per capita gross domestic product (GDP) and their evolution over time in the enlarged European Union (EU). With reference to the literature it groups EU regions on the basis of three different factors—specialisation, socio‐economic features, and innovation. It then analyses regional disparities in per capita GDP (EU‐relative and country‐relative) across groups over 2004–2011 using both non‐parametric tools and traditional regression analysis with spatial effects. The paper finds that EU‐wide convergence actually conceals growing divergence across old member regions and within new members. Coming to the factors that lie at the heart of regional disparities, country factors lose importance for newcomers but become more important for older members, notwithstanding longstanding integration. Socio‐economic factors and innovation instead become increasingly important for all areas, socio‐economic factors lying at the heart of within‐country differences and innovation more of those between regions. Finally, specialisation appears to have a lower explanatory power.     

No Place Like Home? Graduate Migration in Germany

The aim of this paper is to identify migration patterns of the highly educated, placing special emphasis on imbalances across regions. For this, we use data from a representative and longitudinal graduate survey in Germany with information about the work and migration history during the first 5 years after graduation. With regional funding of higher education, the number of graduates who leave the university region and the resulting net balance matter. It is equally important to understand whether economically weak and strong regions are affected differently and if graduates of study programs which are more or less costly to provide display different migration patterns. The findings show that stronger regions are more attractive for graduates. However, graduates of expensive study fields are less attached to their university region than graduates of inexpensive study fields if the university region has an above‐average GDP per capita. There is no evidence, however, that this also holds for regions with a below‐average GDP per capita. These weaker regions thus face a number effect, but there is no composition effect as far as the fields of study are concerned.     

Integrating Civil Society and Economic Growth in Appalachia

ABSTRACT Building from a framework that incorporates ideas from the civil society perspective into market‐based sociological models of economic growth, this article examines the effects of three measures of civic engagement on measure of economic growth in Appalachian counties during the 1990–1995 period. The analysis shows that net of other market competition‐based measures, civic engagement does have a net positive impact on economic growth (increases in private non‐farm employment, private establishment, per capita income, earnings, etc.). The three measures of civic engagement are (1) percent of population in civically engaged denominations (1990), (2) number of national associations per capita (1990), (3) and number of third places per capita (1990). All three measures have significant positive effects in one or more models. Percent in civically engaged denominations has the most consistent effects. Implications are discussed.     

中国水产品消费量与人均GDP动态关系研究

收入水平、城市化率等指标是影响水产品消费量的重要因素,探讨人均GDP增长对人均水产品消费量的影响程度,有助于客观评判中国人均水产品消费量特征。借助1981—2015 年相关统计数据,应用协整理论和误差修正模型等计量经济分析方法,探讨了人均水产品消费量与人均GDP之间的动态变化关系。研究结果表明：人均水产品消费量与人均GDP之间存在长期协整关系;人均GDP增长变化是人均水产品消费量增长的单向Granger 原因,即经济收入增长有助于提高水产品消费量;人均GDP对于人均水产品消费量的冲击力度大于人均水产品消费量对于人均GDP的冲击力度,保持收入水平增长是促进水产品消费的重要措施     

Servicing Our Economy: Producer Service Location and Government Procurement 2004–2010 in the Washington DC Metropolitan Area

Harrington and Campbell (1997) previously illuminated the pattern of producer services' suburbanization in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area between 1970 and 1992. Their results showed producer services growing at a faster rate at locations farther from the central city. We revisit the topic utilizing data from 2004 to 2010, assessing not only changes in the distribution of producer services since their work, but also the impact of massive increases in defense spending on producer services' growth throughout the first decade of the twenty‐first century. Multivariate linear regression is used to estimate per capita growth of producer services employment using six independent variables. Our results reveal producer services employment during the time period has grown significantly more quickly in the urban D.C. core than the outer suburbs, contrary to Harrington and Campbell's research. Additionally, we find per capita producer services employment is self‐limiting over the study period: locations with more producer services employment in 2004 experienced significantly less producer services growth over the period. We find federal procurement has no correlation on producer services overall, with limited effects on some subsectors. Analyzing a select group of producer services subsectors revealed that no sectors followed the overall model exactly, suggesting that targeting producer services for growth must be done carefully. None of our models show employment diversity to be a factor in differentiating economic growth at the intra‐metropolitan level.     

Ecological Carrying Capacity of Shennongjia Based on Sustainable Development

Ecological carrying capacity is a significant index for measuring sustainability of natural resources in a region. This paper applied ecological footprint counting model to calculate ecological footprint and ecological carrying capacity of the typical resource-based city—Shennongjia from 2008 to 2012. The results showed that(a) ecological footprint and per capita ecological footprint in Shennongjia area increased from 86,464.48 ha and 1.076 ha. in 2008 to 93,13.59 ha. and 1.171 ha. in 2012;(b) total ecological carrying capacity, and per capita ecological carrying capacity fluctuated, and total ecological carrying capacity > total ecological footprint, per capita ecological carrying capacity > total ecological footprint, thus it had ecological surplus;(c) among all land use types, water resources had the largest ecological surplus, construction land and woodland had the second and third largest; waters and fossil energy land showed ecological deficit and needed outer supply. As a whole, Shennongjia area had an excellent ecological environment with less destruction and good sustainability.     

The Impact of Trade Liberalization on Regional Disparities in Mexico

After a long period of industrialization based on import substitution (ISI), Mexico started to open up its economy by accessing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1986. The export‐promotion strategy was transformed into one of regional integration with the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. The paper explores the impact of the opening of the economy on regional disparities in Mexico using σ and β‐convergence analyses. Four different samples have been employed to control for possible data bias linked to the inclusion of oil‐producing and maquiladora‐based states. The results show that whereas the final stages of the ISI period were dominated by convergence trends, trade liberalization (GATT) and economic integration (NAFTA) have led to divergence. In particular, the NAFTA period is related to divergence regardless of the type of analysis chosen and the sample used.     

重庆市不同收入等级的农村居民消费特征分析

为了进一步改善消费结构,提高农村居民的消费水平和生活质量,有针对性的对建设城乡统筹发展的直辖市提供科学的依据,本研究以2009年重庆市不同收入等级的农村居民人均消费支出构成数据为分析样本,运用SPSS中的“Correspondence Analysis”过程进行对应分析,得到了不同收入等级户之间、消费结构指标之间以及消费支出结构与不同收入等级户相互间关系的信息。结果表明,前2个公因子的累计贡献率达到了86.9%,其中第一主因子达到51.7%,主要以食品支出;交通通讯支出;衣着支出;教育文化娱乐及服务支出;医疗保健支出为表征。同时做出重庆市不同收入等级的农村居民消费支出对应分析平面点聚图,从中可以看出不同收入等级的农村居民消费结构上的差异。     

Regional Economic Convergence in Mexico: An Analysis by Industry

ABSTRACT Existing studies of convergence across jurisdictions of a nation have focused on developed economies. A key assumption underlying regional convergence is geographical factor mobility, and in a developed economy, mobility is facilitated by low transportation costs. By the same token, convergence in a less-developed economy may be impeded by the absence of a well-developed transportation infrastructure. We examine the rate and industrial composition of economic convergence in a neighboring less-developed country (LDC), Mexico, to examine how it might have differed from the U.S. experience. We find evidence of stronger convergence in Gross State Product per capita in Mexico relative to existing estimates of U.S. convergence. Further, while manufacturing activity has been found to be a primary source of convergence in the U.S., we find weaker evidence of convergence of manufacturing activity in Mexico. On the other hand, industries such as hotels and transportation were found to be significantly influential in regional convergence in the Mexican economy.