An alternative view of the convergence issu of growth empirics

BRIDA, G. - PUNZO, L - LONDON S. - RISSO A

Trento, Italia

Congreso; DYSESS 2010; 2010

In this paper we study the dynamics of economic growth for 140 countries from 1951 and 2003. The variables representing economic performance are levels and growth rates of per capita GDP. Using the concept of economic regime, we introduce a notion of distance between the dynamical paths of distinct countries. Then, a Minimal Spanning Tree and a Hierarchical Tree are constructed from time series to help detecting the existence of groups of countries sharing similar economic performance. The two main clusters that are identified over the whole time interval, can be interpreted as two groups of countries with high and low performance, respectively. The evolution of such clusters shows three main stylized facts: certain countries move across clusters; the high performance cluster tends to span its dimension, while the low performance one tends to be (more) compact; the distance between the two groups increases with time. Keywords: Regime Dynamics; Cluster Analysis; Economic Growth; Economic Performance Regime Dynamics; Cluster Analysis; Economic Growth; Economic Performance JEL classification: O40; O47; C82 : O40; O47; C82 Acknowledgements: Our research was supported by the Free University of Bolzano, project "Economic growth, regime convergence and clusters analysis". : Our research was supported by the Free University of Bolzano, project "Economic growth, regime convergence and clusters analysis".