The GDP per Capita Convergence in the European Union

This paper tests the hypothesis of convergence in per capita GDP for the period 2008-2016 using the case study of European Union (EU) Member States. We also included Croatia into the analysis, even though it became an EU member only in 2013. The general framework for testing the convergence hypothesis is based on the panel data approach. Our results show that there was a convergence in per capita GDP (expressed in thousands Euro PPS in the EU-28) during the period 2003-2016, at a significance level of 5%. The outcomes of the Im-Pesaran-Shin test demonstrate that not all the EU-28 countries yielded the same speed of convergence towards the corresponding steady state. The quantitative approach of the convergence in GDP per capita in the European countries based on the fixed effects model is complemented by the presentation of maps, cartograms, and histograms