This paper empirically examines whether there exists stochastic convergence of income inequality among 48
contiguous states within the US over the 1916–2005 period. For that purpose, we employ the recently developed
panel stationarity test of Carrion-i-Silvestre, Del Barrio-Castro and López-Bazo (2005), which assumes a
highly flexible trend function by incorporating an unknown number of structural breaks. In addition, the issues
of cross-sectional dependence as well as control for finite-sample bias are accommodated through bootstrap
methods. Overall, for the US case, our analysis provides strong evidence in support of the hypothesis of
inter-state inequality convergence. Moreover, the results are robust to alternative inequality measures applied,
different notions of stochastic convergence defined, and alternative panel stationary test employed. 本文旨在以時間序列的觀點再次檢驗所得分配收斂假說。未達此研究目的，我們利用Carrion-i-Silvestre, Del Barrio-Castro and López-Bazo(2005)所提出之縱橫資料恒定檢測(panel stationarity test)並應用美國48洲1916-2005年間所得分配資料來檢定所得分配收斂假說。此一新建研究方法不但可藉由拔靴法(bootstrap methods)控制有限樣本的誤差，因此能提供更強健的統計檢定結果。我們的實證結果顯示，在考慮結果性轉變以及橫斷面相關的問題下，美國48洲的所分配資料支持所得分配收斂假說。此外，此一研究結果不因改變所得分配衡量方式，不同收斂概念的定義以及其他恆定檢測方法的應用而改變，因而顯現本研究結果的強固性(robustness)。
