Real Convergence of Logistics Performance of Countries of the World, EU and V4

Using the database of logistics performance of countries in the period 2007-2016, we study the convergence of countries in terms of logistics performance across the world, the European Union and V4. In comparison with other beta-convergence studies using the OLS estimation method, we also implement a conditional quantile regression (Koenker and Bassett, 1978). The use of the quantile regression allows us to study the convergence of countries not only from the point of view of the average, but also from the perspective of different quantiles of conditional distribution. We identify countries with different leveles of convergence and quantify different levels of convergence across countries of the world. The results provide empirical evidence of the logistics convergence of countries across the world, and also demonstrate that the countries of the European Union and V4 achieve a higher level of convergence than the average convergence of countries across the world during the review period.

Keywords: logistics performance, beta convergence, conditional quantile regression, EU, V4