A PANEL ASSESSMENT OF REAL COVERGENCE IN CEMAC

Abstract

Some authors support that regionalism among underdeveloped countries will tend to cause divergence of their income levels, and regional integration among rich countries will tend to cause convergence. This paper tests this convergence hypothesis in CEMAC between 1990-2002. Our findings lend support to the “convergence club” defined according to policy choices rather than initial levels of human capital. They show that unilateral and preferential suppression of tariff and non-tariff barriers favor the convergence of per capita incomes and reduce the dispersion of real per capita income levels of partners in the sub-region. These results make the idea of convergence club based on the initial levels of productive technology and GDP per capita relative.