Regional Economic Convergence in the European Union

This chapter examines the GDP per capita of 249 European regions over the period 2000-2021, aiming to identify growth patterns consistent with the “club convergence” theory. This theory suggests that income distribution is multimodal rather than unimodal, like a Gaussian distribution. The literature is mixed on this point. Inspection of the data reveals a significant reduction in regional inequalities over the last two decades, especially in initially disadvantaged countries. In this study, we use three alternative clustering techniques. While all of them identify three clusters, two of them show a strong convergence towards a common long-term path, suggesting that the initial tripartite GDP distribution in 2000 has gradually become more uniform, especially in the last decade.