Cross-Country Analyses of Economic Growth: An Econometric Survey

Abstract

This paper reviews the econometric methodology on panel data estimation and testing as applied to the study of convergence in growth empirics. The concept of absolute convergence states that the poorer economies should be growing at a faster rate, catching up the richer ones. The empirical failure of absolute convergence resulted in the development of alternative theories to explain long-term growth: the endogenous growth theories and the conditional convergence, the idea that countries may have different steady-states and it is the distance from their own steady-state that determines the rate of economic growth. This paper focuses on conditional convergence and its empirical testing. It discusses and compares the different econometric methodologies used in cross-section and panel data studies of conditional convergence. Also presented are the empirical results obtained by the various authors.