Abstract
The discussion of regional convergence has been carried out without attention to the question of regional income distributions. To a large extent this has reflected the importance attached to per capita income in models of national and regional growth. From such a vantage point, distribution is of secondary importance. We wish to broaden the discussion of regional comparisons to include the entire regional income distribution.
Highlights
The regions of the United States are usually compared in tenns of their per capita incomes
Average income is of obvious importance, the general theory of social welfare emphasizes the significance of the entire distribution of income and not just its central tendency
In the fourth section we develop the basic measures of proximity for inter-regional income distributions
Summary
The regions of the United States are usually compared in tenns of their per capita incomes. To a large extent this has reflected the importance attached to per capita income in models of national and regional growth. From such a vantage point, distribution is of secondary importance. Some might argue that regional income distributions are not inherently meaningful and only the national income distribution has significance. At this point we affinn our belief that mean incomes are a poor summary measure of regional welfare. When mean incomes are similar, regions are best characterized by indexes sensitive to distribution as well as central tendency
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