Convergence and space

The study of regional income convergence continues to attract enormous attention. Recent emphasis has been placed on the underlying spatial dimensions of regional growth processes both from theoretical and empirical perspectives, as well as from exploratory and confirmatory methodological stances. This paper provides a survey of these efforts. It focuses on a comprehensive overview of empirical studies of regional convergence and divergence, summarizing the existing body of substantive results. The paper also provides a critical review of empirical approaches and methodological advances with an emphasis on the treatment of spatial effects, namely spatial dependence, spatial heterogeneity and spatial scale. A number of areas that have been overlooked are highlighted, and the paper suggests a research agenda on regional growth empirics.