Convergence Across States and Regions

Robert J. Barro and

Robert J. Barro Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics - Harvard University

Xavier Sala-I-Martin

XS

Xavier Sala-I-Martin Yale University

Discussants: Olivier Blanchard and

Olivier Blanchard C. Fred Bergsten Senior Fellow - Peterson Institute for International Economics @ojblanchard1

Robert E. Hall

Robert E. Hall Robert and Carole McNeil Joint Hoover Senior Fellow and Professor of Economics - Stanford University

AN IMPORTANT economic question is whether poor countries or regions tend to converge toward rich ones. We want to know, for example, whether the poor countries of Africa, South Asia, and Latin America will grow faster than the developed countries, whether the south of Italy will become like its north, whether and how fast the eastern regions of Germany will attain the prosperity of the western regions, and—in a historical context —how the American South became nearly as well off as the North.