Abstract

In this paper we shed light on the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) by empirically investigating the presence of convergence across these six countries, over a period (1983–2011). In this period there are significant events that affected these countries, including different episodes of expansions and recessions, fluctuations of oil prices, Gulf Wars (I, II, and III) and the 2008 financial crisis. In line with numerous studies on convergence, we use cross-state regressions to determine the existence or lack of convergence among the GCC countries. The empirical tests give some support to absolute and conditional p-convergence; however we don’t find significant evidence of a-convergence.

 

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