Real convergence in the European Union

Abstract

In recent years, the economic and financial crisis has had a negative effect on all countries.This negative effect occurs unevenly in each of them. The present study aims to study the evolution of convergence in different EU countries using real GDP observations from Belgium, Spain, France, Italy, Finland, Poland, Luxembourg and Germany in the period 2001-2013, through the study of time series, with the aim of analyzing whether there has been a process of long-term convergence, divergence or catching up between the above countries and Germany, which I will set as the reference country for the comparison of Countries. Also, the structural changes produced in the series that may incur errors in the study of the evolution of the series and the possible causes of the series will be taken into consideration.