Conclusions
The empirical analysis gives clear evidence of regional convergence in West Germany: poorer regions tend to grow faster than richer ones. In the period 1957–88, the speed of convergence was around 4 percent per year, implying a halving of the difference between actual and steady-state income every 16 years. While our empirical findings on convergence are of a similar magnitude as found by studies for the US and Europe by Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1991) and Mankiw et al. (1990), they indicate however a somewhat faster speed of adjustment for Germany. Also the pattern of a deceleration of the speed of convergence in recent years is similar to the developments found in these two regions (Barro and Sala-i-Martin 1991).
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Herz, B., Roger, W. Economic growth and convergence in Germany. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 131, 132–143 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02709075
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02709075