A STUDY OF THE CONVERGENCE OF PER CAPITA INCOME AMONG THE MUNICIPALITIES OF SANTA CATARINA

Abstract

The study on income convergence is already consolidated in the international literature. At the national level, several are the studies that investigate the behavior of the income evolution of the municipalities and states in different regions. These investigations are important in providing information to the policymakers, who can develop strategies to promote economic growth and development in the regions concerned. Within this context, the municipalities of the State of Santa Catarina were never investigated separately from the perspective of convergence, even the State showing high relative growth rates when compared to the others. In this work, the objective is to test the hypothesis of convergence of per capita income between the municipalities of Santa Catarina for the period of 2000 and 2010. For this, we adopted a strategy composed of two different methods, the quantile regressions and the method non-parametric B-splines. Overall, the results indicated absolute income convergence. The nonparametric regression analysis suggested that besides convergence there are convergence clubs among the municipalities of Santa Catarina, pointing out different trajectories between groups.