Abstract

MENDEZ-GUERRA, Carlos. Beta, Sigma and Distributional Convergence in Human Development? Evidence from the Metropolitan Regions of Bolivia. rlde [online]. 2018, n.30, pp.87-115. ISSN 2074-4706.

Almost half of the population of Bolivia lives in the metropolitan regions of La Paz, Santa Cruz, and Cochabamba. Motivated by the development potential of these regions, this paper evaluates the process of regional convergence in human development through the lens of three frameworks: beta, sigma, and distributional convergence. The overall result highlights an increase in the speed of convergence that is driven by both relative forward mobility of the less developed regions and relative backward mobility of the more developed regions. Additionally, the distributional convergence framework indicates that the formation of multiple convergence clusters is a salient feature of inequality reduction. In the long-run, convergence appears to be characterized by the transformation of a trimodal distribution into a left-skewed unimodal distribution. This last result implies that the least developed regions are still relatively far from achieving complete convergence in human development.

Keywords : Convergence; distribution dynamics; human development; Bolivia.

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