Are Caribbean countries diverging or converging? evidence from spatial econometrics

After gaining political independence from the European countries and the United States, the Caribbean Basin economies have at the end of the 2000s display considerable differences in income and living standards. In this paper the concepts of convergence are used to examine whether disparities in per capita GDP of selected countries in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have tended to diminish or not. It was shown, based on descriptive statistical methods, and spatial statistical and econometric tests of beta-convergence and sigma-convergence that there was an absence of convergence for CARICOM countries since the early 1980s. This is so even in the OECS group which are linked in a quasi monetary union framework.