Economic Convergence of the Countries in 1992-2022

Abstract

Economic science has always been concerned with the catch-up effect: are developing countries really catching up to technologically developed countries, and is the economic gap between rich and poor countries narrowing over the long run? The goal of this article is to test the hypothesis of economic convergence of countries as one of the primary research problems within the field of cross-country inequality. The objective of this research is to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to economic cross-country inequality. This article seeks to ascertain the impact of country convergence, as postulated by R. Solow in his model of economic growth, utilizing R. Barro’s equations for the period from 1992 to 2021/22. The paper reveals the existence of economic convergence, but at a rate that is insufficient for developing countries to catch up to developed countries in a meaningful way. The dynamics of convergence by decade is analyzed separately. It is found that convergence was as slow as possible in the period between 2002 and 2011 and as fast as possible in the period between 2012 and 2022. The economic shocks of 2020-2022 may undermine the catching-up potential of many developing countries, which may result in a slowing of further convergence.