The purpose of this paper is to investigate the refinement equations of the form ψ(x) = ∑α∈Zs a(α)ψ(Mx - α), x ∈ Rs,where the vector of functions ψ=(ψ1,…,ψr)T is in (Lp(Rs))r, 1≤p≤∞,a(α),α∈Zs,is a finitely supported sequence of r × r matrices called the refinement mask, and M is an s × s integer matrix suchthat lim n→∞ M-n = 0. In order to solve the refinement equation mentioned above, we start with a vectorof compactly supported functions ψ0 ∈ (Lp(Rs))r and use the iteration schemes fn := Qnaψ0,n = 1,2,…,where Qa is the linear operator defined on (Lp(Rs))r given by Qaψ:= ∑α∈Zs a(α)ψ(M·- α),ψ∈ (Lp(Rs))r. This iteration scheme is called a subdivision scheme or cascade algorithm. In this paper, we characterize the Lp-convergence of subdivision schemes in terms of the p-norm joint spectral radius of a finite collection of somelinear operators determined by the sequence a and the set B restricted to a certain invariant subspace, wherethe set B is a complete set of representatives of the distinct cosets of the quotient group Zs/MZs containing 0.