DETECTING TRENDS OF CONVERGENCE AMONG THE EUROZONE COUNTRIES IN TERMS OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM

DETECTING TRENDS OF CONVERGENCE AMONG THE EUROZONE COUNTRIES IN TERMS OF ECONOMIC FREEDOM

The present paper adopts a broad perspective of the Optimum Currency Area theory, and attempts to detect trends of convergence in terms of economic freedom among the Eurozone countries. The empirical analysis utilizes the Index of Economic Freedom and employs the methodological approaches of unconditional β-convergence and convergence clubs. The results indicate that the trend revealed for the period 2001-2017 is, in fact, the balance between the opposite trends revealed for the sub-periods 2001-2008 and 2008-2017. Particularly, during the sub-period 2008-2017 the trend of convergence vanishes and the trend of divergence becomes stronger.