Convergence among national economies is viewed by a growing number of observers as an inevitable result of increasing global integration of product and financial markets. Yet there is reason to doubt that globalization has yet brought about, or will in the future bring about, the degree of convergence assumed by some. First, markets require effectiveness, not optimality. This allows considerable space for continued differences in national economic policy choices, institutional structures, and performance patterns. Second, domestic institutions mediate the impact of international market forces. Institutions differ markedly across countries, generating substantial cross-national variation in the preferences and capacities of economic actors (firms, unions, policy makers, and so on). To assess the convergence thesis empirically, I examine developments in the 17 richest industrialized nations from 1960 to 1994. There is some indication of convergence in a few areas, but it is limited. This appears to owe partly to the fact that globalization itself remains limited and in part to the fact that globalization's convergence-generating effects are limited.