What is High Income Countries

The persistently large income gap between the Developed Countries (DCs) of the North and relatively Less Developed and Developing Countries (LDDCs) of the South is one of the most notable features of the international community over the last few decades. Such large disparities in income are paralleled by huge gaps in other non-monetary indicators of well being. Different research works in this field have indicated that the average annual growth rate of per capita income in LDDCs has been faster compared to that in DCs particularly since early 1990s indicating a sign of convergence in the growth process. However, the absolute gap between the DCs and LDDCs in terms of per capita GNP has widened over years. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to indicate the pattern of ß-convergence and s- convergence in income growth between DCs and LDDCs during 1960-2012. The study observes that there remains a definite indication of ß and s convergence in the growth rate of real PCI across different groups of nations particularly during the period 2000-2013.