Controversies of technology convergence within the European Union

Purpose - This paper aims to provide empirical evidence on technology convergence within economies of the European Union which is usable for determining the economic growth policy aimed at sustainable long-run economic growth and the convergence of the development between EU-member states. Design/methodology/approach - Two different empirical procedures are applied by estimating the technology convergence within the European Union on Eurostat data set. The first is framework developed by Dowrick and Nguyen. The second one is the authors' original contribution to the methodology which is based on the frontier production functions. Findings - Significant technology convergence is recognized between 15 old EU-member states and eight new-member states. However, the technology convergence has obviously not accelerated the convergence of gross domestic product per labor unit between exposed groups of economies. Technical inefficiency is recognized as the main source that impedes a spill-over effect of technology convergence. Following this it is established that in the future more effort should be directed into elimination of technical inefficiency. Originality/value - Presented findings can be used to arrange the economic policy measures aimed at accelerating technology development in case of European Union.