REGIONAL COHESION - EVIDENCE AND THEORIES OF REGIONAL GROWTH AND CONVERGENCE

After arguing that the concepts of beta-convergence and alpha-converge nce are independently interesting, this paper extends the empirical ev idence on regional growth and convergence across the United States, Ja pan, and five European nations. We confirm that the estimated speeds o f convergence are surprisingly similar across data sets: regions tend to converge at a speed of approximately two percent per year. We also show that the interregional distribution of income in all countries ha s shrunk over time. We then argue that, among the proposed potential e xplanations of this phenomenon, the one-sector neoclassical growth mod el (with no capital mobility or with partial capital mobility) and the hypothesis of technological diffusion seem to be the ones which survi ve scrutiny.