Despite the fact that convergence has been a popular theme in applied economics since the seminal papers of Barro (1991 …)and Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1992), the very notion of convergence quickly becomes problematic from an academic viewpoint … when we try and formalize a framework to think about these issues. In the light of the continuous prominence of convergence …

We propose a common factor approach to analyse convergence, which we implement using principal components analysis. We … show that this method provides a useful new way of approaching the convergence debate. We apply this technique to a dataset … 1970-2001. Our empirical results neatly capture the convergence patterns related to the various regimes from Bretton Woods …

We present a common factor framework of convergence which we implement using principal components analysis. We apply … and NMC countries as a whole, there is evidence of a formation of convergence clubs across the two groups. …

We present a common factor framework of convergence which we implement using principal components analysis. We apply … and NMC countries as a whole, there is evidence of a formation of convergence clubs across the two groups. …