Agricultural Productivity Growth in the Euro-Med Region: Is there Evidence of Convergence?

This paper measures agricultural productivity growth by means of the sequential Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index among a set of thirty-two countries including West European, Central and East European (CEE) and Middle East and North African (MENA) countries for the period 1961-2002. At a second stage it is also investigated whether this measure is converging among the countries, by employing cross-sectional tests for absolute and conditional β-convergence as well as for club convergence. Results suggest that despite the fact that the CEE and MENA countries exhibit a high rate of productivity growth after the 1990s, absolute convergence cannot be accepted. Still, evidence for conditional convergence is found and the formation of two separate clubs of countries that converge to different equilibrium points is identified