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The purpose of this paper is to examine the convergence analysis of public debt among Indian states using annual data from 1990‒1991 to 2014‒2015.

The paper tests this hypothesis using club convergence technique propounded by Phillips and Sul (2007).

The results reveal the existence of debt divergence for overall Indian states. States are formed into four clubs on the basis of their level of debt, and three clubs support the hypothesis of club convergence. Further, the total public debt decomposes into three compositions such as market loans, bank loans and loans and advances from the central government. The existence of convergence is found for market loans and bank loans; however, the presence of divergence is found in case of loans and advances for overall states.

Since public debt plays an important role for fiscal health of the Indian states, findings of this study suggest to squeeze the fiscal consolidation further for Indian states whose debts as a percentage to gross state domestic product are on the higher side. Further, the examination of debt convergence helps to manage debt level among the states because heavy dependence on public debt could retard investment and economic growth.

Whereas bulk of empirical studies emphasize on examining the linkage between public debt and economic growth, and issue on debt sustainability across Indian states, examination of convergence of debt and its compositions (markets borrowings, bank loans and loans and advances from the central government) among the Indian states is scanty.

The research analyzes the convergence of several socioeconomic indicators in a sample of 137 countries over the period 1990–2019. Applying log t-convergence tests, it finds that socioeconomic indicators’ convergence is divergent. Measuring seven different indicators, there are only two indicators of life expectancy and access to the internet converging at the global level, while the remaining indicators of gross domestic product per capita (GDPP), foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow, urbanization, fertility, and CO₂ emissions do not. An extension to sub-sample analysis by levels of income and clustering convergence clubs is employed to confirm the heterogeneity and complexity of development pathways among countries. There are several insights for researchers and governments regarding future research and policies, especially for the development of developing countries.

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 aims to explore convergence of accounting standards across worldwide adopted measures to investigate whether countries that have not completely adopted International Accounting Standards across the globe have displayed a tendency to act so.

The new panel convergence methodology, developed by Phillips and Sul (2007), is employed.

The empirical findings suggest that countries form distinct convergent clubs, albeit on a limited prevalence, yielding support to the notion that on a global basis firms and countries have initiated processes that will eventually lead them to a uniform pattern of employing common accounting standards.

These findings have substantial implications on a firm level, mainly for differences in accounting quality as well as for differences in their cost of capital, thus leading the regulatory authorities to opt for further improvements in financial reporting.

The novelties of this paper first, stem from the fact that it is the first time in the relevant literature that an empirical study attempts to formally measure whether the accounting world exhibits a tendency for accounting standards convergence or whether tactics and policies remain stagnant, acquiring drastic policy measures to speed up the convergence process. In addition, this study employs the implementation of the new methodology of panel convergence testing. This methodology has several appealing characteristics.

The post-Soviet space, consisting of the countries of the former USSR and the Warsaw Pact, is a good testing ground for the dynamics of growth. Motivated by the mixed evidence on economic convergence in the region, this paper explores why countries have performed differently, focusing on institutional strength and its determinants. It proposes the hypothesis that, in the region, Russian influence plays a negative role in institutional development, both through opaque business practices that come with it, and through the isolation from European Union influence it entails. The paper uses recent panel data to test this hypothesis, concluding that there is some evidence supporting a negative effect of Russian influence on post-Soviet states’ institutions, but that more rigorous analysis is needed to confirm this link.

The study evaluates the accident-adjusted dynamic efficiency of public bus operators providing bus transportation services in eight major metropolitan cities of India.

The slack-based measure (SBM)–undesirable window analysis approach is used to gauge the dynamic efficiency levels and identify the sources of inefficiency in bus transportation services. This innovative approach integrates the SBM model developed by Tone (2001, 2004) and the window analysis approach of Charnes et al. (1985). The main advantage of this approach is that one can explicitly incorporate the number of accidents in the production technology specification as an undesirable (bad) output and potently handle the issue of the “curse of dimensionality” in a small sample like ours.

The key empirical findings suggest wide variations in average efficiency levels across sample bus operators in metropolitan cities. The Chennai Transport Corporation is observed as the most efficient and consistent bus operator due to its most stable efficiency performance. The results additionally unveil that the role of managerial inefficiency was diminutive, and the scale-related issues were the real cause of sub-optimal or supra-optimal behaviour of sample bus operators in the resource-utilisation process.

There is an urgent requirement for effective policy intercessions to mitigate the sizeable observed inefficiency in the production process and resolve scale-related issues of public bus operators offering transit services in major metropolitan cities of India.

This paper is maybe the first to assess the dynamic efficiency of public bus transit systems in India's major metropolitan cities after treating accidents.