Convergence is a key concept in many economic theories. It also plays a major role in comparing development trends of different types of objects. The classical concept deals with GDP differences’ equalizing over time. But, with the theory evolution, the concept has been expanded to include convergence issues according to different socio-economic aspects. We focus on socio-economic development explained by synthetic measures employing taxonomic distance (SMD). Our goal is to study convergence in such sense for the European Union (EU) member states and some countries aspiring to join the EU. The use of SMD measures in the study is based on the rationale that socio-economic development is a multidimensional process that cannot be effectively described by a single variable (i.e., GDP). Thus, we defined an appropriate measure, described the selection of variables and the nature and limitations of the method. We examined the socio-economic development of selected countries for years 2000-2019 and estimated their convergence. We conclude that Western Balkans aspiring to EU membership display, albeit distant, development convergence. We showed that in the pre-accession processes, the aspirants did not effectively use the aid funds they received.
Abstract