This article examines the conditional income convergence hypothesis for 17 major states in India for the period of 1960-2012. Univariate stationarity tests without structural breaks provide evidence against the convergence hypothesis. However, when two or more structural breaks are applied in per capita income series, the incomes of around 11-13 states are found to stochastically converge to the national average. This finding supports the convergence hypothesis for the panel as a whole after accounting for two data features, cross-sectional dependence and structural breaks in incomes, using a unified panel stationarity testing framework.
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Applied Economics on 25 April 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/00036846.2017.1319559