Economic Convregence in the European Union

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Starting with the Treaty of Rome (1957), the European Union adopted common policies to promote "harmonious economic development and balanced expansion. " The paper investigates how wuccessful such policies were, by examin-ing whether there was economic convergence of the real per capita GDP in the EU. Two measures of convergence are employed. The first is σ, which is based on the cross standard deviation of the real per capitea GDPs of the EU countries; the second is β convergence based on the neoclassical growth model. Both σandβwere estimated using EU data for the period 1960-1995, The empirical findings support the hypithesis of economic convergence within the EU except ofr the 1980-85 sub-period where weak divergence was indicated.