Structural Convergence of the National Economies of Europe

Abstract

Analysis of convergence has centered on movement of indices such as per capita incomes or welfare for countries or regions within countries. In this paper, the analysis focuses on the structure of economies in terms of the distribution of production across sectors and explores the implications of convergence of structure for a subset of EU countries. To assist in the exploration, some new methodology is introduced, based on the notion of a field of influence of change. A set of sensitivity indices and an associated importance matrix are constructed for a set of intercountry input-output tables. The results find that sectors at the European level are become more similar than the national economies as a whole.