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The purpose of this paper is to investigate convergence or divergence trends at global scale.

The paper questions the methodology and findings of the conventional convergence literature using linear OLS models. It introduces polynomial (quadratic) weighted least square (WLS) regression analysis to explore whether a number of economic performance indicators follow a non‐linear pattern of change.

The results indicate the formation of two groups in the world: a convergence one, including countries with low to medium‐high development levels, and a divergence one including countries with medium‐high to very high development levels.

Data availability after 1990 (for the composite indicators).

The findings shed light on important issues, such as the decrease of economic disparities between countries, the prospects for global economic convergence, and the development of a more equal world. Apart from obvious policy implication such findings are also of theoretical significance, providing a basis to check (indirectly) the validity of alternative growth theories.

This is the first paper (to the authors' knowledge) that explores world convergence/divergence employing quadratic WLS regression analysis with a number of economic indicators. WLS regressions enable the removal of the impact of country size on results, whereas non‐linear modelling allows the possibility of multiple equilibria and different development trajectories to be taken into account. Finally, the employment of various economic‐performance indicators (simple and composite) works as a cross‐check of validity for the results provided.

This chapter evaluates the readiness of the higher education system to contribute to the competitiveness of African countries in the knowledge economy. Using institutions of higher learning in Kenya and Uganda as case studies, the study demonstrates that the higher education system in Africa is ill-equipped to fulfill the role of knowledge production for the advancement of African economies. The chapter proposed promising ways through which higher education in the region can play a more fulfilling role to the global knowledge economy through the formation of relevant skills for the growth of African economies. In an era where knowledge assets are accorded more importance than capital and labor assets, and where the economy relies on knowledge as the key engine of economic growth, this chapter argues that higher education institutions in Africa can assist in tackling the continent’s challenges through research in knowledge creation, dissemination, and utilization for improved productivity. These institutions need to engage in design-driven innovation in the emerging knowledge economy. To enhance their contributions toward human capital development and knowledge-intensive economies in the region, it is imperative to employ public-private initiatives to bridge and address various challenges and gaps facing universities and research institutions in Africa.

A substantial number of researchers have investigated the global economic dynamics of this time to disprove unconditional convergence and refute its very idea, stating the phenomenon of conditional convergence instead. However, most respective papers limit their investigation period with the early or mid-2000s. In the authors’ opinion, some of the global trends which revealed themselves particularly clearly in the second half of the 2000s call for a revision of the convergence issue. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Several methodologies for measuring the global convergence/divergence trends exist in the economic literature. This paper seeks to contribute to the existing literature on unconditional β-convergence of the per capita incomes at the global level.

In the recent years, the gap between high-income and middle-income countries is decreasing especially rapidly. The gap between high-income and low-income countries, meanwhile, is decreasing at a much slower pace. At the same time, the gap between middle-income and low-income countries is actually widening. Indeed, in the early 1980s GDP per capita in the low-income countries was on average three times lower than in the middle-income countries, and this gap was totally overshadowed by the more than ten-time abyss between the middle-income and the high-income countries. Now, however, the GDP per capita in low-income countries lags behind the middle-income ones by more than five times, which is largely the same as the gap (rapidly contracting in the recent years) between the high-income and the middle-income countries. This clearly suggests that the configuration of the world system has experienced a very significant transformation in the recent 30 years.

The research concentrates upon the dynamics of the gap in per capita income between the high-income, the middle-income, and the low-income countries.

This paper's originality/value lies in drawing attention to the specific changes in the structure of global convergence/divergence patterns and their implications for the low-income countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the importance of specific local development policies and partnerships for SME enterprises in Thessaloniki one of the metropolis of south Europe. The two main research questions are: first, what are the most important development policies for firms’ development? and second, in what level these policies receive different significance from firms belonging in different production sectors?

In order to achieve the aims of the paper and answer the research questions, the study uses an extensive use of bibliography, and field research that has been implemented by administering questionnaires on a representative sample of 227 enterprises. The study comes up to valuable conclusions for the firms and the city through the use of exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis and clustering.

The present research brings on important issues and questions about local economic development because it presents directly the estimations and views of a large number of local enterprises that reflect the image of local economy. Finally, this research gives a satisfactory overview of the inner growth of Thessaloniki and further the results could lead to an evaluation, planning, implementation, rejection or reconstruction of specific actions and policies locally.

The analysis is constrained by weakness since the sample of enterprises is rather small and the results concern only the enterprises located in Thessaloniki. Based on this fact, general conclusions can be drawed for other regions as well as for the whole Greece. This is subjected to more analysis.

The added value of this research is essential since there are only few similar researches in South-East Europe and in Greece. Especially, the relationship between local development policies and firms’ development competitiveness has not been studied enough in the area under consideration.

Enterprises understand and designate the importance of specific policies that affect their development while at the same time through their evaluations they outline the character and dynamics of these policies in a unique dynamic, geographical and productive city like this of Thessaloniki.

The analysis showed that enterprises recognize as positive factor the effort of the local authorities to set the area as a business pole in favour of enterprises and the broader area but policy problems of organization and planning arise that concern mainly the operation and support of local enterprises and specific those from the tourist and service sector. This image raises issues of competence on planning and organization of development polices by the local authorities focusing on specific productive sectors so as the effect of these policies to be effective with positive results for enterprises.

The present paper is part of a study associated with the migration phenomenon and the formation of intercultural social and economic relations which emerged in Italy in the nineteenth century and its practical and social implications in the twenty‐first century. The city of Trieste, Italy consists of a case study which examines the formation of organizational networks in the Mediterranean and in Europe which consist of the basic body of the so called Greek commercial dispersion.

This study presents data collected from the analysis of archival documents. It is part of the scientific field of social anthropology and is a case study where participative observation was employed. Interviews with people offered the researchers ground to explain the purposes and reasons for the implementation of decisions related to the creation of the organizational networks.

The article discusses the relation between the national group with its unique cultural identity and entrepreneurship, emphasizing the cultural characteristics of such relation. The consequences from the existence of these networks in all sectors of the life of the community of these areas are investigated. To a third level of discussion, the mapping and analysis of the cultural interactions which emerged as a result of these networks shaping an integrated cultural identity is examined.

The project succeeds in making a theoretical and practical contribution to the way the development of organizational networks presented for Trieste, Italy can consist of a typical recourse for other areas of the Mediterranean where cultures and identities intermingle nowadays and migration and policy directions need to be implemented.