Two of the most significant types of alternative investment funds worldwide are hedge funds and private equity funds.  For years, these two alternative investment strategies have been converging.  Although the financial crisis may slow this convergence, the trend will ultimately continue and strengthen – albeit with some important variations across countries.  In a contributed article, Houman B. Shadab, senior research fellow in the Regulatory Studies Program at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, examines the impact of the financial crisis on convergence, explains the distinction between “strategic” and “structural” convergence, discusses the convergence that already has occurred in distressed debt investing and emphasizes the importance to the pace and shape of convergence of variations in regulatory approaches across jurisdictions.