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Abstract
Most economists conclude that the U.S. regions have converged
in per capita earnings during a majority of the 20th century,
though controversy abounds over the methods employed to test for
such convergence. Using time-series techniques, this paper finds evi -
dence that the U.S. regions have conditionally converged in per capita
earnings. The findings in this paper differ from cross-sectional studies,
which implicitly assume that all regions converge toward the
same steady-state and at the same rate. The findings in this paper differ
from other time-series studies with its use of recursive parameter
estimates.1