Economic performance clubs in the Americas: 1955-2003

The aim of this paper is to study the economic dynamics of a set of countries of the Americas during the 1955-2003 period. It does this by introducing an alternative concept of economic performance based on the idea of dynamic regimes. These regimes are defined by the level and growth rate of per capita gross domestic product (gdp). By introducing a non-parametric clustering method, the study identifies two main performance clubs whose evolution is studied. One of them, identified as the club of high-performing countries, displays a relatively homogeneous structure. The second group, conversely, presents a high level of dispersion in performances, suggesting the existence of subclusters with a degree of divergence between them. The study also finds that there is mobility between the low- and high-performing groups and that the distance between clusters increases over time.