A test for multimodality of regression derivatives with application to nonparametric growth regressions

This paper presents a method to test for multimodality of an estimated kernel density of derivative estimates from a nonparametric regression. The test is included in a study of nonparametric growth regressions. The results show that in the estimation of unconditional β-convergence the distribution of the partial effects is multimodal, with one mode in the negative region (primarily OECD economies) and possibly two modes in the positive region (primarily non-OECD economies) of the estimates. The results for conditional β-convergence show that the density is predominantly negative and there is mixed evidence that the distribution is unimodal. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.