The Levels to Measure Real Convergence - Catching-up Issues in Hungary

The paper primarily focuses on Hungary's catching-up process in terms of real economics. Yet, considering that the presence or absence of real convergence can be verified in several ways, in this paper the catching-up process is analysed at three levels: I will consider how well or badly Hungary performed economically against the average performance of EU member states between 2000 and 2017 and when we can foreseeably reach such average performance level. Four groups of EU member states can be established by beta convergence analysis by taking both the initial income levels and growth rates into consideration; Hungary is also categorised accordingly. To utilise another method of categorisation and to deepen our analysis, I furthermore investigate whether Hungary belongs to the category of less developed, medium developed or developed EU countries as far as real economic indices other than GDP per capita are concerned. Finally, I analyse cross-country inequalities in Hungary. When comparisons with the other EU member states are made, it is unavoidable to discuss convergent or divergent macroeconomic trends within the EU and for this reason the paper also investigates how convergence between the EU member states can be tested and reveals the results of the related calculations.