INCOME CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE WITHIN AND BETWEEN LDC GROUPS

We test in this study for per capita income convergence between 89 LDCs in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. It is hypothesized that, given the large pool of publicly available technological innovations, the economies with the ability to adopt/adapt these innovations will tend to have their per capita incomes converge over time. Our findings point to income convergence within a smaller subsample of 30 countries. Our findings also suggest that the factors that contributed to this ability include the relative size of government, population growth and investment levels. © 1991.