An Empirical Analysis Of The Convergence Effect Of Economic Growth In 20 Countries Along The Way

Two thousand years ago, the industrious and brave people in Eurasia opened up several channels of trade and cultural exchanges between several regions of civilization include Europe, Asia and Africa, and their offspring will be collectively referred to as the "Silk Road." In the 21 st century, peaceful development and win-win cooperation has become the theme of the times, and after the US financial crisis in 2008, the global economic recovery is weak, international investment and trade patterns are brewing profound changes.“Belt and Road”strategy adapt to the requirements of economic globalization and the construction of the world’s polarization and cultural diversity., inheriting the ancient Silk Road’s spirit of peace, openness, cooperation and win-win, to promote the efficient flow of factors of production and the efficient allocation of resources and market the depth of integration.The proposal and implement of“Belt and Road”strategy not only satisfy the need oft China’s opening up,but also strengthen countries mutually beneficial cooperation in Europe, Asia and Africa. and also provide new impetus to world economic recovery, drive the rise of the whole Asia.And “Belt and Road”strategy can or can not narrow the economic gap between countries along, become an important factor for construction and implementation of “Belt and Road”.Therefor, this paper focus on the existence of economic convergence or not through analyzing “Belt and Road”strategy under not yet implemented(natural state) by empirical analysis, and then analyzes“Belt and Road”through the construction of interconnection, enhanced spatial dependence among countries along,and would help along the country’s economic convergence.The thought of “Economic growth convergence hypothesis "is from the neoclassical growth model, which was proposed by Solow and Swan in 1965, the core of the model is a function of production and capital accumulation equation, the basic assumption is constant returns to scale in production and diminishing marginal product as factor inputs.since the 1980 s, the new theory of economic growth questioned to the economic convergence theory that the core of economic growth is technological progress, so you can achieve the same or even marginal returns increasing marginal returns.From long-term point of view, due to the production technology and management level between the various economies vary widely, and thus, between different economies economic growth does not necessarily tend to converge, and may even tend to diverge.Facing the challenge from the new economic growth theory, the supporters of neoclassical growth theory have extended and complemented "economic convergence hypothesis".Economic convergence has been subdivided into absolute β convergence, conditional β convergence and convergence club. This paper is based on the absolute β convergence and conditional β convergence, analyzing the existence or not of economic convergence by empirical analysis on countries along“Belt and Road”strategy that in natural state.In the mid-1980 s, Baumol(1986) pioneered the convergence of economic growth empirical research.Many domestic scholars using cross-sectional data models, panel data model for analyzing cross-border or cross-regional areas by empirical analysis. Overall, the majority empirical research of cross-border economic convergence shows that there is no absolute β convergence in the world, but there is β convergence condition.This paper using spatial panel data analysis methods to overcome the cross-sectional data analysis methods omitted variables and endogenous variables problems. Meanwhile, after the introduction of spatial effects, considering every country along “Belt and Road”strategy into the model for analysis,and each country will no longer be seen as independent, unrelated economies,thus, be better to argument “Belt and Road”initiative on strengthening infrastructure construction, improving trade facilitation and strengthening factor mobility, and trade can be more to strengthen economic ties and along the country’s spatial effects.This paper mainly studies the countries along “Belt and Road”which exist absolute β convergence and conditional β convergence or not before the implementation of “Belt and Road”(natural state),to support the practical and theoretical significance of narrowing differences and aiming at promoting the countries along common prosperity.By using the 20 representative countries along“Belt and Road” ten years(2004-2013) of panel data, comparing the differences between not introduction and after the introduction of spatial effect model,indicating the presence of the positive spatial effect. In addition, by LM-Lag, LM-Error and robust LM-Lag and robust LM-Error test,deciding to set the spatial lag model, spatial auto-correlation, or a combination of both models.