Catching-up and club convergence from cross-national perspective. A statistical study for the period 1980-2010.

The paper present the analysis outcomes on the catching-up process. Additionally it seeks for identifying the “convergence clubs” in cross-national section. It implements a traditional analysis of convergence tracking the catching-up process as well as the per capita income dynamics across time. The author finds no statistically significant relationship between average annual GDP PPP per capita growth rates (as exponential growth rate) and initial GDP PPP per capita (as natural logarithm) in a selected group of countries. The author also identifies the existence of “rich country cluster” and “poor country cluster” in the analyzed sample. The author applies for statistical analysis the country sample composed from 101 economies. All data concerning GDP PPP per capita are drawn from the IMF World Economic Outlook Database 2011. The time coverage is 1980-2010.