Economic Convergence of Western Balkans Toward the EU 27—Beta and Sigma Convergence

The purpose of this research is the evaluation of the convergence of the Western Balkan states toward the European Union through the neoclassical theory calculated by the sigma and beta indicator estimators. This theory, in principle, tests the hypothesis that poor countries grow faster than rich countries, measured by the GDP per capita at the PPP indicator. The realization of this study is made through the Time-Series approach. We test real convergence of the WB toward the EU for the period 2000–2020. The research focuses on the five Western Balkans countries and the 27 EU member states. Econometric methods and techniques employed are the unit root test methods to assess the stationarity of the data. From the empirical results, it seems that the integration of the weighted standard deviation speaks of a decrease in inequality throughout the years for different states, making the study more realistic and reliable. In Western Balkans, income dispersion has changed faster than in other countries (a gradual decline from the 90s until now). However, it is evident that from 2005 to 2007 specifically, the dispersion of income experienced a significant increase, trying to achieve the opposite effect of convergence that of divergence.