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Urbanisation and Structural Transformation

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Author Info
Guy Michaels
Ferdinand Rauch
Stephen Redding

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Abstract

This paper presents new evidence on urbanization using sub-county data for the United Statesfrom 1880-2000 and municipality data for Brazil from 1970-2000. We show that the twocentral stylized features of population growth for cities - Gibrat's Law and a stablepopulation distribution - are strongly rejected when both rural and urban areas are considered.Population growth exhibits a U-shaped relationship with initial population density, and onlybecomes uncorrelated with initial population density at the high densities found inpredominantly urban areas. We provide evidence that the explanation for these patterns lies indifferent employment growth dynamics in the agricultural and non-agricultural sectors andthe process of structural transformation away from the agricultural sector.

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Paper provided by Centre for Economic Performance, LSE in its series CEP Discussion Papers with number dp0892.

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Date of creation: Oct 2008
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Handle: RePEc:cep:cepdps:dp0892

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Related research
Keywords: urbanisation; economic development; urban population; rural population;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
R11 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Analysis of Growth, Development, and Changes
R51 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - Regional Government Analysis - - - Finance in Urban and Rural Economies

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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Kristian Behrens & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2009. "Survival of the Fittest in Cities: Agglomeration, Polarization, and Income Inequality," Cahiers de recherche 0919, CIRPEE. [Downloadable!]
  2. Stephen Redding, 2009. "The Empirics of New Economic Geography," CEP Discussion Papers dp0925, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Stephen Redding, 2009. "Economic Geography: A Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature," CEP Discussion Papers dp0904, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Hernán D. Rozenfeld & Diego Rybski & Xavier Gabaix & Hernán A. Makse, 2009. "The Area and Population of Cities: New Insights from a Different Perspective on Cities," NBER Working Papers 15409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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