Much of the literature on economic change in the post-1945 world is permeated by two ideas: the temporal convergence of per capita incomes across economies and the spatial advance of free trade. For many economists and historians the two are linked: the reduction of trade barriers in the...

Economic convergence has emerged as one of the key debates in the theoretical andhistorical literature over the last decade. Galor identified three forms of long run percapita income convergence: absolute convergence, whereby convergence occursindependently of the initial conditions facing each...