Did the unemployment rates converge in the EU?

This paper looks at unemployment rate convergence among the EU Member States. In particular, it examines whether the unemployment rate differences diminished between 1991 and 2014 among the old EU countries, among the new EU countries, among the euro countries and among the no-euro countries, and whether the new EU countries were converging in this sense to the group of old EU countries. Three alternative concepts of convergence are considered and tested for on each group of countries:sigma-convergence, stochastic convergence and time-series beta-convergence. The results provide strong support for EU unemployment rate convergence, although within each group there are large differences between the countries and during the recent economic downturn, there were clear signs of temporary divergence as well.