Technological Convergence in Emerging Economies: An Investigation with Unit Root Tests

Technological developments play an important role in economic growth and development and form the basis in the convergence of socioeconomic factors between developed and developing countries, especially income. At the same time, developing countries aim to catch up with the leading countries by improving their technological capabilities, and examining the technological convergence between countries, especially developing countries, is essential at this stage. This study aims to examine whether technological convergence occurs in 10 emerging economies. For this purpose, the study analyzes technological convergence over the variables of number of patents, labor productivity, and total factor productivity using Pesaran's (2007) cross-sectionally augmented Dickey-Fuller (CADF) and seemingly unrelated regression augmented Dickey-Fuller (SURADF) unit root tests. According to the results of the analysis, although there is convergence in some countries, it does not confirm in general technological convergence among the countries.