About regional convergence clubs in the European Union*

The goal of this research is to present the concept of convergence club within the European Union members, starting from the hypothesis that an overall convergence cannot be identified because of the high output disparities between countries and between regions. For the analysis, the concept has been used as a method of regression based on a convergence test that supposes an innovative decomposition of the GDP per capita and enables the endogenous determination of convergence clubs. In order to achieve the objective, the paper undertakes an empirical analysis of GDP per capita convergence for EU-28 members and for 272 regions corresponding to NUTS2 level. The results of the analysis show that at national level, during 1995 – 2012 there are significant differences between foundation members and CEEC economies, while at regional level five convergence clubs were identified. The basic conclusion is that in the conditions of lack of convergence between EU-28 countries, the identification of convergence clubs helps the European Union in reducing the economic disparities across European regions.