Beta and Sigma Convergence in the Post-Socialist Countries in 1990-2005

This paper presents the detailed analysis of real economic convergence in 27 former socialist countries. We focus on two concepts of convergence: absolute (unconditional) a3B2 convergence and a3C3 convergence. The period analysed is 1990-2005. In the paper we embark on a very wide empirical study of convergence. First, we analyse the catching-up process in the whole group of 27 countries as well as in several narrower subgroups: Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) - 12, Central and South-Eastern Europe (CSEE) - 15, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) - 10, and CEE-8. Second, we conduct our analysis both for the whole 1990-2005 period as well as for shorter sub-periods.