Threshold conditions’ and regional convergence in european agriculture

Abstract

Convergence across regional economies has spurred one of the most debatable issues in contemporary research in economics. In this paper we seek to address the question of whether, during the period 1995-2004 the NUTS-2 regions of EU-26 exhibited a tendency to converge in terms of agricultural labour productivity. The approach used in this paper is mainly quantitative, with emphasis on empirical results. However, it is hoped that this paper will be able to isolate some interesting views on the issue of regional convergence in Europe. Application of a series of models indicates that the NUTS-3 regions follow a pattern of club-convergence. This pattern is attributed to initial ‘threshold conditions’ that determine the composition of the convergence-club.