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“It should also be noted that the objective of convergence and equal distribution, including across under-performing areas, can hinder efforts to generate growth. Contrariwise, the objective of competitiveness can exacerbate regional and social inequalities, by targeting efforts on zones of excellence where projects achieve greater returns (dynamic major cities, higher levels of general education, the most advanced projects, infrastructures with the heaviest traffic, and so on). If cohesion policy and the Lisbon Strategy come into conflict, it must be borne in mind that the former, for the moment, is founded on a rather more solid legal foundation than the latter” European Commission (2005, p. 9)Adaptation of Cohesion Policy to the Enlarged Europe and the Lisbon and Gothenburg Objectives.

EU countries, including those in Central and Eastern Europe, seem to have increasingly similar economies, allowing for the study of real convergence as a process of equalising income levels (measured by GDP per capita). Studies of income convergence in the European Union also have a regional dimension and often focus on convergence at the NUTS2 or NUTS3 regional level. The level of development and income in Polish regions differ significantly. The regional policy implemented at the national and EU level focuses on reducing these differences.

The main aim of the chapter is to analyse the income convergence process among regions in Poland and verify the effectiveness of regional policy implemented at the national and EU level.

The study uses Barro type regression for panel data, log t convergence test, and club clustering algorithm introduced by Phillips and Sul to identify patterns of club convergence in Polish regions. The data used for the study is the Local Data Bank provided by Statistics Poland, which includes gross domestic product per capita at the NUTS-3 level for 73 Polish regions over the period of 2000–2020.

The results of the study indicate a very weak convergence process for all Polish NUTS-3 regions and suggest a club convergence. The club convergence is characterised by regions with similar income levels clustering together. The regional distribution of clubs is similar to the regional distribution of income. The study's findings provide important insights into the effectiveness of regional policy in Poland and suggest that policymakers need to focus on policies that promote catch-up growth in less developed regions. The study also highlights the importance of supporting the most developed regions in the country as they can play a crucial role in driving the country's economic growth and prosperity.

This paper extends a methodology proposed by Nissanov and Silber (2009) who decomposed the coefficient β used in convergence analysis into three components checking respectively whether there was σ-convergence, whether ‘pure mobility’ (upward or downward income mobility) was lower among the poor and what the extent of ‘residual mobility’ (the third component) was.

The present paper extends this analysis by applying it to the analysis of regional per capita income levels but also to that of within regions inequality and regional welfare levels. The empirical illustration uses Portuguese data on average earnings at the level of NUTS3.

Does the standard of living vary from region to region in Portugal and are spatial units in Portugal converging in income? We observe spatial error dependence between municipalities and estimate spatial econometric models to test convergence. For conditional convergence we conclude that primary sector employment, activity rate, and percentage of active population with higher education are important to distinguish the “steady state” of the regional economies, reflecting the labor market at regional level.

If the only difference between cities lies in their initial housing prices, the initially lower-price cities should eventually catch up with the initially higher-price ones, i.e., “absolute convergence.” Alternatively, if the major determinants of housing prices are city-specific, cities will converge to parallel growth paths of housing prices, i.e., “conditional convergence.” This study tests for the existence of absolute and conditional convergence in house prices among cities in China. The strong evidence for conditional convergence suggests that each city possesses its own steady-state housing price to which it is converging, which depends on the city's own socio-economic characteristics. In other words, differences in these socio-economic characteristics among cities can create permanent differences in housing price among them. The differences in steady-states house price across cities reflect differences in the level of socio-economic development among them. The findings inform the kinds of interventions and resources that are most likely to be effective in reducing income disparity.

The policy of globalization for India was a mix bag contributing benefits and losses. Increased foreign trade, foreign exchange reserves, market expansion was contrasted with fall in domestic industries, unemployment and increase in inequality. The present study analyzes the presence of convergence or divergence of incomes of the states in India using the concepts of Sigma convergence, Beta convergence, and stochastic convergence for the post-reform period of 1993–1994 to 2014–2015. The study tests for absolute β – convergence by using trend line analysis; regression of CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) as a function of the Average PCSDP (Per Capita State Domestic Product) of initial three years of the observed period and regression of point-to-point growth rate of per capita income to the growth rate of initial three years. A negative relationship shall imply the presence of convergence. Further the study uses panel unit root test and relevant dynamic processes to test for conditional β and stochastic convergences. It reveals the evidence of divergence in income across the states.

Like the cross-country convergence or divergence analysis in incomes to address the global phenomenon, the same analysis is also required to be done in the case of a group of states within a national territory. Further, it is also required to see whether convergence or divergence in incomes of the states is attributable to the convergence or divergence in their allocations of bank credits. Thus, this chapter aims at examining whether the selected major states in India are converging or diverging in the allocations of bank credit, and if so, what will be the magnitudes of decreases or increases in the level of disparities and inequalities in credit allocations. This study concludes that there is a clear diverging tendency of credit allocations of the states of India during the post-reform period so far as the absolute convergence hypothesis of the neoclassical theory is concerned. Further, in terms of the framework of σ convergence, the study observes that all phases of the Indian economy have produced converging paths of the inter-state credit allocations, and the path becomes diverging during the post-reform phase. Based on the quantifications of the magnitudes of disparities and inequalities in terms of CV, C4 concentration, HHI and Gini values, this study thus reveals that there are significant increases in the levels of disparities and inequalities in the allocations of credit to the states from the pre-reform to the post-reform phases. Therefore, the persistence of divergence in income or rising income inequality during the phase of the major reform program in India may be due to the persistence of divergence and rising inequality in the allocation of bank credit.

In this chapter, I attempt to extend insights regarding statistical aggregates from scholars, such as Hayek (1931) and Mises (1947), to the topic of inequality. Using the work of Lindert and Williamson (2016), I show that a disaggregation of inequality into some of its many subcomponents alters our reading of its evolution. While I only work with stylized facts from the field of economic history, and the authors argues that the promising implications derived from disaggregation militate in favor of more effort being directed toward decomposing the evolution of inequality.

In the post-WTO era, the volume of international trade has grown in a good amount in India. At the same time, the continuous lowering and removing of the trade barriers of different forms create several impacts on poverty and inequality. In this chapter, we tried to capture the issues of inequality, specially the gender inequality, which has worsened a lot in the last two decades. In one side, trade openness enhanced the growth, but at the cost of increasing inequality. Theil index and Atkinson index both show an increasing trend of inequality. The Gender Inequality Index (GII) and the Inequality-adjusted Human Development or Gender Development Indices are also showing increasing inequality. The state-wise analysis of such inequality indices is varying a lot over the study period. This chapter throws some insight into these issues and concludes that in the post-WTO era income inequality has increased a lot with a very few exceptions. In some states (like Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, and Punjab) only export have increased the employment in the unorganized sectors. The study concludes that exports have generated additional employment and incomes in the economy, but these gains have not trickled down to the poor. The study is confined to Indian cases only and covers the time period 2000–2001 to 2018–2019.

The unequal distribution of economic activities, transposed in economic, social and territorial disparities is the general characteristic of the European economy. Gaps increased in the context of European Union (EU) enlargement towards Eastern and Central Europe and of the economic crisis, thus bringing new differentiations among member states’ economies. The main aim of the chapter is to emphasise the centre-periphery differentiations in the European economy, by using a composite index of peripherality, in order to better understand the determinants of growth and convergence in Central and Eastern European countries and to reach normative conclusions for increasing Cohesion Policy (CP) effectiveness. The first part of the chapter provides a short overview of the main theories and models of the peripherality analysis and the relationships between the centre and the periphery, in order to find out how this analysis relates to the research in the field. The second part provides a comparative analysis of the evolution of European economies during 2003–2014, in order to find out whether the EU enlargement process stabilised the EU core-periphery pattern or, on the contrary, the process of core-periphery structural convergence occurred. The third part includes the suggested model of analysis (methodology, data, and main results) from a multidisciplinary perspective, underlining the centre-periphery differentiations on the two axes, North–South and West–East. The results have been interpreted in conclusions, with a focus on their relevance for the European CP challenges.