THE CLASSICAL APPROACH TO CONVERGENCE ANALYSIS

The concepts of sigma-convergence, absolute beta-convergence and condi tional beta-convergence are discussed in this paper. The concepts are applied to a variety of data sets thar include a large cross-section o f II0 countries; the sub-sample of OECD countries, the states within t he United States, the prefectures of Japan, and regions within several European countries. Except for the large cross-section of countries, all data sets display strong evidence of sigma-convergence and absolut e beta-convergence. The cross-section of countries exhibits sigma-dive rgence and conditional beta-convergence. The speed of conditional conv ergence, which is very similar across data sets, is close to 2 % per y ear.