Crecimiento, convergencia y espacio en las regiones chilenas: 1960-1998

Abstract

We have revisited the research about Chilean regional convergence. Using a set of tools from the spatial econometrics we find support for the most of the previous conclusion in the literature about this topic. However, we find some new evidence about the convergence process that is taking place in Chile. This says that in the last decade had been an increasing divergent process of growth of the Gross Regional Product (GRP) per cápita, where the spatial dependence had played an important role in the formation of two clusters. One in the north of the country (Regions I, II and III), and it is characterized by high rate of growth (hot spot). The other is in the south and it has low growth rate (Region VIII, IX and X). We used the Global and Local Moran’s I, the Moran’s Scatterplot and a spatial error model with fixed effects and all of them give strong evidence that support this conclusion.