GDP growth and convergence determinants in the European Union: a crisp-set analysis

Abstract

Economic growth and convergence remains a topical issue. This study uses a crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis of data from European Union countries in order to establish which conditions could be considered necessary and sufficient to make these countries converge. Based on six different conditions (GDP, secondary education, life expectancy, fertility rate, government consumption and inflation rate), this study finds that the main conditions affecting convergence are government consumption ratio (lower levels will increase convergence), education levels and life expectancy (both with a positive influence on convergence). The first two conditions show quite interesting results: in fact, reduction of government expenditure and budget constraints are an open debate; and the European Union’s aim to become a more competitive economy can only be attained with higher levels of education.

City Brand: What Are the Main Conditions for Territorial Performance?

“…Introduced in the literature by [33], QCA has been developed ever since (see, for example, [32] or [34]. Used originally in social sciences like sociology, recently it has also been used in areas related to economics and management, with applications on countries' economic performance [35], export performance [36], economic growth [37], innovation [38] or entrepreneurship [39,40]. Despite this general use of fsQCA, no other studies were found to identify the conditions to evaluate city branding.…”

Higher Education Input, Technological Innovation, and Economic Growth in China

“…The main sufficient condition for both outcomes is a good research system. Ferreira and Dionísio (2016) [14] used a crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis of data from European Union countries to establish which conditions could be considered necessary and sufficient to make these countries converge. Based on six different conditions (GDP, secondary education, life expectancy, fertility rate, government consumption, and inflation rate), this study found that the main conditions affecting convergence are the government consumption ratio (lower levels will increase convergence), education levels, and life expectancy (both with a positive influence on convergence).…”

Política de cohesión y desequilibrios socioeconómicos interterritoriales en la Europa del Sur durante los últimos veinte años. Los casos de Piamonte, Comunidad Valenciana y Sicilia

“…características sociales y comunicaciones), esboza un mapa plagado de desigualdades socioeconómicas (Mairal, 2008;Bouzarovski & Tirado, 2015;Maynou et al, 2015;Carlsen & Bruggemann, 2021;Vinci, 2021), dando lugar a espacios de alta accesibilidad y otros más aislados. La notable disparidad entre territorios europeos queda de manifiesto en indicadores como el Producto Interior Bruto (PIB), que muestra valores superiores en los países pertenecientes a la Unión Europea (en lo sucesivo, UE) que en los que no lo son -aunque estos últimos ocupen un territorio más extenso- (Ezcurra et al, 2004;Ferreira & Dionísio, 2016). Dentro de los países pertenecientes a la UE también existen desigualdades regionales.…”