Revisiting Convergence: A Case Study Form American States

Rita Ray
(Department of Economics and Management, Gustavus Adolphus College, St Peter, MN, USA)

Abstract: This paper investigates the convergence of wage and salary disbursements per job and compensation of employees per job for fifty one states in the United States for the period 1990 and 2010. Additionally, this paper examines the relationship between the wage and salary disbursements per job and compensation of employees per job at 1990 and their respective annual growth rates between 1990 and 2010 for four regions in the United States. This paper finds that the American States are diverging with respect to wage and salary disbursements per job and compensation per job for the last twenty years. This paper also finds that the wage and salary disbursements per job and compensation of employees per job are converging in the “Mid-West” and in the “West”, whereas they are diverging in the “North-East” and in the “South”.

Key words: convergence; growth; region; United States

JEL codes: J31, O47, O51