Urbanization, Urban Concentration And Economic Development

An international comparative study of the relations among the process of urbanization, urban concentration and economic development, and income distribution was performed by using data of developing and developed countries. Cross†section analyses at certain time periods for capturing “long†run†effects as well as time†series analyses for some countries for “short†run†effects were done taking advantage of the “rectangular†array of data. There were several interesting results: the pattern of unemployment rate in most developing countries shows an inverted†U shaped curve with respect to the degree of urbanization; the pattern of urban concentration is in the form of an inverted†U with respect to the economic development level; and the degree of inequality of income distribution seems to react in an inverted†U form to the variances in the extent of urbanization.