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The cyclical behavior of US crime rates reflects the dynamics of crime in the country. This paper aims to investigate the US's club convergence of crime rates to provide insights into whether the crime rates increased or decreased over time. The paper also analyzes the factors influencing the probability of states converging to a particular convergence club of crime.

The analysis is based on balanced panel data from all 50 states and the district of Columbia on violent and property crime rates covering 1976–2019. This yields a cross-state panel of 2,244 observations with 55 time periods and 51 groups. In addition, the author used a club clustering procedure to investigate the convergence hypothesis in the study.

The empirical results support population convergence of violent crime rates. However, the evidence that supports population convergence of property crime rates in the study is not found. Further analysis using the club clustering procedure shows that property crime rates converge into three clubs. The existence of club convergence in property crime rates means that the variation in the property crime rates tends to narrow among the states within each of the clubs identified in the study. Analysis based on an ordered probit model identifies economic, geographic and human capital factors that significantly drive the state's convergence club membership.

The central policy insight from these results is that crime rates grow slowly over time, as evident by the convergence of violent crime and club convergence of property crime in the study. Moreover, the existence of club convergence of property crime is an indication that policies to mitigate property crime might need to target states within each club. This includes the efforts to use state rather than national crime-fighting policies.

As crimes are committed at the local level, this study's primary limitation is the lack of community-level data on crime and other factors considered. Analysis based on community-level data might provide a better representation of crime dynamics. However, the author hopes to consider this as less aggregated data are available to use in future research.

The paper provides new insights into the convergence of crime rates using the club convergence procedure in the USA. This is considered an improvement to the methods used in the previous studies.

This paper reviews one of the crucial issues in the recent growth literature concerning the hypothesis of cross country convergence of levels and growth rates of income per capita implied by the neo‐classical growth model, both in the Solow‐Swan and Rampsey‐Cass‐Koopmans versions. The alternative endogenous growth models, consistent with permanent income inequality, are considered. Convergence to a common income level versus divergence is discussed from a theoretical point of view. Then, empirical tests of the convergence property are presented. What emerges is that Barro type regressions and their findings about “conditional” convergence are questionable and cannot be used to give a definitive response on this issue.

The paper tests for long‐run monetary policy convergence and short‐run policy interactions in seven ERM countries over the 1979‐1992 period using the approach of multivariate cointegration and Granger‐causality tests. The authors provide evidence for very little monetary policy convergence, even during the more stable 1987‐92 period. Tests for short‐run monetary policy interactions show that, in agreement with some other studies, Germany is not the leader country in the system as it appears to accommodate shocks in other member countries. The tests show also that full monetary policy convergence applied among Germany, Belgium and The Netherlands in the 1987‐92 period implies that these countries could be the first to join a European monetary union should a two‐speed approach to monetary union become a reality.

This paper discusses the nominal and real convergence regarding Greece being a country-member of the European Union (EU), and of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). We argued that nominal convergence is relative to Maastricht criteria when real convergence has been investigated through six different axes: (1) the five Maastricht Criteria, (2) the GDP per capita in PPP prices, (3) the real GDP growth rates, (4) the minimum wages, (5) the HDI index development, and (6) the unemployment rates. We concluded for the case of Greece that by utilizing alternative indicators, such as the Maastricht criteria, and the above criteria only nominal convergence exists while real convergence appears to be a long-term target with many obstacles. In particular, Greece has managed to achieve the criteria proposed by the EMU (Maastricht Criteria) for membership, decisively different levels of unemployment, wages, and GDP growth rate/GDP per capita in PPP prices, and different human development indexes appear for the case of Greece.

Social change and modernization theories postulate that as countries grow they gradually move toward a condition of similarity in various spheres exhibiting similar economic and social traits. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a process of convergence in terms of criminality levels is present in the case of European countries.

The research question at hand is tackled through conventional s and ß-convergence methodologies and a battery of unit root tests in the case of 16 European countries over the period 1972-2012.

The findings reported, herein, are quite uniform irrespective of the empirical methodology employed to investigate the issue at hand. The result points to a process of convergence in terms of crime rates. However, this convergence process, although present and statistically traceable, is a rather gradual one as this is depicted both by the value of the β-coefficient as well as by the trend of the coefficient of variation.

Most of the studies in this strand of the literature focus on investigating the association between economic conditions such as unemployment and crime or on the effectiveness of crime thwarting policies. To the best of the knowledge, this is the first paper that addresses the issue of convergence in terms of crime rates in the case of European countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate inflation convergence within the East African Community (EAC) as it aspires to become a currency union.

An unobserved dynamic factor model was used to decompose the variation in inflation into a component that is common across the countries in the EAC region and a component that is country specific. Convergence was measured by the percentage of variation in inflation that is common across countries.

The estimated results from the dynamic factor model for the pre‐EAC Treaty (1981:3 to 2000:2) period and post‐EAC Treaty (2000:3 to 2009:1) period suggest that the percentage variation in inflation in the EAC that is explained by the common regional component increased significantly during the post‐Treaty period.

One of the limitations of this paper is that it does not address the mechanism through which the convergence in a currency union is achieved. Future research should try to examine the link between convergence and different macroeconomic policies.

This paper suggests that the push towards forming a currency union in East Africa has led to a greater degree of inflation synchronization across different countries in the region.

The main contribution of this paper is to use an unobserved component model to estimate the degree of inflation synchronization in East African countries.

“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.

Convergence rates for high‐order finite‐element polynomials are discussed in the context of problems arising in cylindrical co‐ordinate systems with azimuthal symmetry. It is shown that expected rates of convergence can only be obtained by the proper choice of interpolation function.

The aim of this chapter is to examine the nominal and real convergence of Czechia. The importance of the convergence of Czechia with the euro area is linked to the future intention of joining the Economic and Monetary Union after the Maastricht criteria are met. This chapter covers the period from 2004 to 2021. We argue that nominal convergence is relative to the Maastricht criteria, when real convergence focuses on different areas: the Maastricht criteria, gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in purchasing power standards and real GDP growth rate, labour market (minimum labour costs and unemployment rates. Findings suggest that Czechia has reported the strongest real convergence in the area of relative economic level, moderate convergence of labour costs and divergence of unemployment. The nominal convergence analysis suggests that Czechia will not meet the Maastricht benchmarks in the near future and is not ready to join the euro area given its high inflation rate and the state of public finances.

Tests for long‐run macroeconomic convergence among European Union (EU) countries according to the various exchange rate regimes that have prevailed over the last 40 years. Applying a recently developed test to the monthly index of industrial production data, output convergence is confirmed or rejected depending on whether or not the first largest principal component based on benchmark deviations with respect to Germany is stationary or not. It is argued that this methodology has key advantages over existing cointegrating and common trends procedures. For most EU countries, there is evidence of increased macroeconomic convergence during the 1990s, where evidence is particularly strong for Belgium, France and The Netherlands. The evidence also indicates that the Snake era of the 1970s was more conducive towards convergence than the initial exchange rate mechanism period of 1979‐1992. Firm evidence of convergence is lacking for Austria, Finland and Sweden, who joined the EU in 1995, and for a sample of non‐EU countries.