Productivity polarization and sectoral dynamics in European regions

We show that the distribution dynamics of productivity in European regions displays polarization with a nonlinear growth path. We investigate the factors explaining this behavior focusing in particular on sectoral composition. The beta-convegence analysis reveals that initial shares of Manufacturing and Other Market Services have a nonlinear impact on growth, while spatial effects are not statistically significant. By decomposing the dynamics of aggregate productivity in terms of sectoral dynamics, we show that productivity in Manufacturing, Non Market Services, and Other Market Services does not converge, for the complex interaction of technological spillovers and specialization effects. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.