HUYUGUZEL KISLA, Gül Ş. Ege Üniversitesi - İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi - İktisat Bölümü, Turkey , DELIKTAS, Ertugrul Ege Üniversitesi - İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi - İktisat Bölümü, Turkey

LABOR PRODUCTIVITY CONVERGENCE OR DIVERGENCE IN TRANSITION COUNTRIES BEFORE AND AFTER THE COLLAPSE OF SOVIET UNION

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This study examines labor productivity convergence in the Former Soviet Union Countries. It is known that labor productivity is a key of measure of economic growth and national competitiveness. The study includes two periods: first period covers the 1970-1989 years, and second period includes the 1991-2010 years called as the transition period. The findings of study indicate that during the Soviet Union, the speed of labor productivity convergence for fifteen countries is almost zero. On the other hand, according to conditional convergence model labor productivity levels have slowly converged towards the steady-state levels during the transition period. The convergence speed for the transition period is 0.021 for fixed effect pooled least squares model and is 0.115 for GMM model.

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convergence , labor productivity , Soviet Union Countries , transition economies

Ege Strategic Research Journal

15