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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.

Innovation convergence is critical to national or regional economic growth patterns. This article provides a systematic review of innovation convergence research through qualitative discussions combined with bibliometric methods. Through this article, researchers interested in the field of innovation convergence can quickly understand the development of the field, quickly identify authors and publications with significant impact, and collaborative networks in the field.

This article is based on the relevant literature included in the WOS database from 1990 to 2021, using Citespace, Gephi and other software to conduct a systematic bibliometric analysis of the research in the new convergence field.

This research shows that the second half of the twentieth century was a boom period for research on economic convergence. 2. The subject foundation of innovation convergence research mainly includes mathematics, economics, political science and computational science. 3. The journals that publish research in this field are widely distributed, including the fields of economics, natural sciences and complex sciences. 4. The research in the field of innovation convergence is inseparable from the research in the field of economic growth.

This study may help others to understand the development history and research trends of the innovation convergence field, as well as the literature and cooperative scientific research institutions that have an important influence.

With the growth of income at the global level, the World Bank data show that there are rising levels of income disparity across countries, groups, regions and within the countries. This fact otherwise hints at the inter-country divergence in incomes, particularly between the developed and developing countries of the world. This chapter, therefore, attempts to examine the convergence or divergence in credit, GDP and HDI across the 10 selected countries for the period of 1990–2019 applying the neoclassical growth approach and the time series approach. The results of the exercise in line with the neoclassical theories on absolute convergence and sigma convergence show that the countries are unquestionably converging in GDP and HDI with mixed results in case of credit. The results of convergence in GDP and HDI in all the countries and their developed and developing counterparts provide a possible explanation as to why the cross countries’ income inequalities as well as world inequality in income and development are reducing over time. On the other hand, the results of the time series approach display that credit and HDI are converging in both absolute and conditional terms but the countries are converging in conditional terms only for GDP. Thus, the claims of the World Bank are not valid for the selected countries in the chapter, rather, they can be verified by taking other countries and groups into consideration.

Forestry is an integral part of an economy. It not only maintains the balance of the ecosystem but provides sustainable livelihood to the forest-fringe dwellers, apart from being a huge source of revenue for the government. Hence, proper management of the forest resources is an important concern for the economists. On the other hand, convergence of natural resources is one of the hot cakes of discussion for the economists. In this study, the authors have considered three forest regions of West Bengal; these three being the largest forest areas hold an important position in West Bengal’s economy. Here, the authors have considered the whole of dryland forestry that covers the arid and semi-arid districts of western part of the state. They have also considered the forestry of Jalpaiguri and Cooch Behar districts that cover the sub-Himalayan forestry of North Bengal and mangrove forestry of South 24 Parganas district. The authors have used time-series data for the time period 1980–2019 and performed the Absolute Beta Convergence and Sigma Convergence Analysis as well as Conditional Beta Convergence of the total forest products of these three regions. In this study, the authors have found the existence of both forms of beta convergence but for variations, a divergence has been observed. The authors have also used the data from 2000 to 2019 on various aspects of income from forestry and performed the three forms of tests, like that of total forest products and observed similar type of results, that is, beta convergence of both forms but sigma divergence. The findings of this study ask for serious steps by the government bodies, since the decreasing rates are the causes of worries.

This paper aims to explore the digital economy in the fields of the most promising new technologies: information and communication technologies, biotechnology and nanotechnology. It highlights the convergence of nano-, bio-, info- and cognitive (NBIC) technologies by developing a model for the accurate evaluation of different types of options in the development process of convergent technologies.

The empirical research is based on theoretical analysis and case studies. The authors conducted six in-depth interviews. The study covered different research projects led by centres of excellence, competence centres and institutions that support the transfer of innovations in the economic and business environment.

The research findings prove that there is a convergence of NBIC technologies that can be observed and modelled. The created evolutionary model of NBIC convergence, also based on the theory of real options, allows a proper evaluation of the entire convergence process.

For enterprises and scientific research institutions, the NBIC model could represent the starting point for developing further concepts of investment evaluation. The model also considers the indicators of the innovation system, which, in addition to the marketing area, include regulatory challenges of companies (competition, copyrights, patents, taxation, etc.).

This paper enhances the understanding of new technologies in a digital economy. The purpose of this study is to clarify the principal factors for the effective observation and measurement of the convergence phenomenon. It also offers suggestions for improvement of the research and innovation system in the new economy.

This paper examines the interrelationships among debt policy, dividend policy, and ownership structure using a simultaneous equation framework. Our approach allows us to test both the convergence of interests theory and entrenchment theory. Using a sample of publicly traded South Korean manufacturing firms, we find that debt policy and ownership structure have a positive impact on dividend policy. We also find that both debt and dividend policy are positively related to ownership structure. Our findings support both the theory of convergence of interests between management and ownership and entrenchment theory, and also explain why many studies have found conflicting results.

This paper aims to investigate the influence of Islamic marketing ethics and convergence marketing on competitive advantage and bank performance.

This study is based on a survey of 204 Indonesian branch managers from the Islamic banking industry. Results were produced with the partial least square approach.

Results revealed that Islamic marketing ethics and convergence marketing have sufficient confidence to have significant influences on competitive advantage, producing a positive association with a competitive advantage. However, Islamic marketing ethics and convergence marketing did not influence bank performance directly. Competitive advantage positively mediated the relationship. Furthermore, organizational digital literacy did not moderate the relationship between convergence marketing and bank performance.

This study contributes to the conceptualization of convergence marketing and the identification of its effects on competitive advantage and bank performance. The identification of convergence marketing in this dissertation contains dimensions of mobile, security, foreign currency, holistic and interactivity as different aspects from the steps of Islamic banks to digitize their services to the internet in a single application. The results also indicate that convergence marketing does not have a direct effect on bank performance but has an indirect effect through competitive advantage. Convergence marketing must first create a bank advantage over its competitors to have a good effect on bank performance.

This study offers many opportunities for Islamic bank marketers to improve performance. Many Islamic banks currently do not implement Islamic marketing ethics consistently and thoroughly. The results of this study encourage Islamic banks by showing that the more intensive and consistent they are in implementing Islamic marketing ethics, the better their competitive advantage and the higher the performance. This effort can be done in various ways, such as offering tariffs/ratios of services transparently to customers, not exaggerating the benefits of the products offered to distort customer expectations, building brands that can strengthen customer confidence in Islamic banks and only offering products and services with high-quality standards.

This study uses a sample of Islamic banking so that it is still limited to certain types of banks. Future research needs to conduct model testing in different contexts such as conventional banking. In addition, further research needs to use the capabilities or capabilities of bank IT as a moderator in the effect of convergence marketing on bank performance. Future research also needs to control for more variables and use a scale that is more complex than the binary scale (for example, the percentage of share ownership or territory in the scope of the province or district/city).

This research views the Islamic bank competitiveness through the lenses of Islamic ethical theory and convergence marketing theory.

The investment development path of emerging markets’ MNEs is significantly different from the developed (TRIAD) world’s MNEs; BRIC MNEs seem to have taken a different trajectory on account of various political and economic reasons, ranging from the ‘forms of entry’ to ‘country-specific advantages’ (Tulder, R. V. (2010). Toward a renewed stages theory for BRIC multinational enterprises? A home country bargaining approach. In K. P. Sauvant, G. McAllister, & W. A. Maschek (Eds.), Foreign direct investments from emerging markets: The challenges ahead (pp. 61–74). New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan). Yet, some believe that in the long run the internationalization strategy of the developed world MNEs and BRIC MNEs will converge. Internationalization strategies as measured by OFDI depend on various macroeconomic determinants such as income, interest rate, openness of the economy, etc. The chapter intend to highlight, the significant difference between these two groups of countries on account of diverse political reforms towards internalization of firms, yet see if these different countries might converge.

Regression analysis examines the significance of the role of home government by testing the effect of governance indicators; that is voice and accountability, on OFDI. It further, tests for convergence of internationalization strategies of the two historically divergent groups, also, it tests convergence amongst the BRIC nations. Along with forecasting, time series analysis is also employed to examine convergence using univariate sigma convergence techniques.

Impact of voice and accountability is significant but it hinders OFDI for BRIC nations, while it promotes OFDI for TRIAD & ALL. Moreover, the analysis found the existence of convergence, that is BRIC will catch up with TRIAD, but though convergence exists amongst BRIC if we take a long span of time (45 years), it is absent in short span of time (19 years), as lately BRIC have shown divergent tendency.

Small sample size in multivariate regression analysis. Also, the governance indicator, that is voice and accountability, is perception based, and missing gaps in data for governance indicator is filled using interpolation.

Empirically testing the convergence of BRIC nations with the developed world. A univariate time series analysis is undertaken to understand each country’s heterogeneous FDI outflows and to address the research gap in existing forecasting literature. In addition, the comparison specifically between the Emerging Market Economies, that is the BRIC nations and the developed world gives some useful insights. This chapter ascertains the impact of governance indicator on OFDI; empirical literature shows such analysis for IFDI & FDI, but OFDI is rarely been dealt with.

This paper aims to examine the impact of corruption and bureaucracy on economic growth in Greece as measured by the growth rate of per capita GDP. Also, using the mean per capita GDP of the EU as a benchmark, it seeks to investigate the convergence timing of Greece with the EU.

The empirical approach taken is based on beta convergence theory.

The results confirm the negative impact of bureaucracy and corruption on economic growth. However, the corruption exerts a more significant influence on growth than bureaucracy. Also, the timing of convergence of Greece with the EU is found to be 37 years.

The robustness of these results is based on the use of a relatively new econometric method which is the Markov conditional bootstrap.

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.