Is Latin America’s economic growth convergence procyclical?

Abstract

This paper looks at the hypothesis of conditional convergence of Gross Domestic Product (gdp) per capita for a set of eighteen Latin American countries establishing a positive link with the growth rate of those economies. To that purpose, β-convergence, σ-convergence and γ-convergence analyses are conducted. Furthermore, with the aim of identifying spatial heterogeneity the relationship among neighbor territorial units and product levels are studied applying the I Moran statistics. By and large, a regional convergence path with high conditional β-convergence, a lower dispersion of per capita incomes and a lesser mobility of countries along the ranking are shown to exist.