IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/inq/inqwps/ecineq2011-192.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is there a metropolitan bias? The inverse relationship between poverty and city size in selected developing countries

Author

Listed:
  • Céline Ferré

    (World Bank)

  • Francisco H.G. Ferreira

    (World Bank)

  • Peter Lanjouw

    (World Bank)

Abstract

This paper provides evidence from eight developing countries of an inverse relationship between poverty and city size. Poverty is both more widespread and deeper in very small and small towns than in large or very large cities. This basic pattern is generally robust to choice of poverty line. The paper shows, further, that for all eight countries, a majority of the urban poor live in medium, small, or very small towns. Moreover, it is shown that the greater incidence and severity of consumption poverty in smaller towns is generally compounded by similarly greater deprivation in terms of access to basic infrastructure services, such as electricity, heating gas, sewerage, and solid waste disposal. The authors illustrate for one country—Morocco—that inequality within large cities is not driven by a severe dichotomy between slum dwellers and others. The notion of a single cleavage between slum residents and well-to-do burghers as the driver of urban inequality in the developing world thus appears to be unsubstantiated—at least in this case. Robustness checks are performed to assess whether the findings in the paper are driven by price variation across city-size categories, by the reliance on an income-based concept of well-being, and by the application of small area estimation techniques for estimating poverty rates at the town and city level.

Suggested Citation

  • Céline Ferré & Francisco H.G. Ferreira & Peter Lanjouw, 2011. "Is there a metropolitan bias? The inverse relationship between poverty and city size in selected developing countries," Working Papers 192, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
  • Handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2011-192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ecineq.org/milano/WP/ECINEQ2011-192.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Prebisch, Raúl, 1950. "The economic development of Latin America and its principal problems," Sede de la CEPAL en Santiago (Estudios e Investigaciones) 29973, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    2. Ferreira, Francisco H. G. & Lanjouw, Peter & Neri, Marcelo Côrtes, 2003. "A Robust Poverty Profile for Brazil Using Multiple Data Sources," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 57(1), January.
    3. Gabriel DEMOMBYNES & Chris ELBERS & Jean O. LANJOUW & Peter LANJOUW, 2008. "How Good is a Map? Putting Small Area Estimation to the Test," Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali, Vita e Pensiero, Pubblicazioni dell'Universita' Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, vol. 116(4), pages 465-493.
    4. Martin Ravallion & Shaohua Chen & Prem Sangraula, 2007. "New Evidence on the Urbanization of Global Poverty," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 33(4), pages 667-701, December.
    5. Chris Elbers & Jean O. Lanjouw & Peter Lanjouw, 2003. "Micro--Level Estimation of Poverty and Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 355-364, January.
    6. Erzo F. P. Luttmer, 2005. "Neighbors as Negatives: Relative Earnings and Well-Being," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 963-1002.
    7. Demombynes, Gabriel & Ozler, Berk, 2005. "Crime and local inequality in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 265-292, April.
    8. Tomoki Fujii, 2010. "Micro-Level Estimation of Child Undernutrition Indicators in Cambodia," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 24(3), pages 520-553, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luc Christiaensen & Ravi Kanbur, 2017. "Secondary Towns and Poverty Reduction: Refocusing the Urbanization Agenda," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 9(1), pages 405-419, October.
    2. Luc Christiaensen & Joachim De Weerdt & Ravi Kanbur, 2017. "Cities, towns, and poverty: Migration equilibrium and income distribution in a Todaro-type model with multiple destinations," Working Papers 434, ECINEQ, Society for the Study of Economic Inequality.
    3. Christian Düben & Melanie Krause, 2021. "Population, light, and the size distribution of cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 189-211, January.
    4. Toriqul Bashar & Salim Rashid, 2012. "Urban microfinance and urban poverty in Bangladesh," Journal of the Asia Pacific Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 151-170.
    5. Astrud Lea Beringer & Jutamas Kaewsuk, 2018. "Emerging Livelihood Vulnerabilities in an Urbanizing and Climate Uncertain Environment for the Case of a Secondary City in Thailand," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(5), pages 1-22, May.
    6. Menashe-Oren, A. & Stecklov, G., 2017. "IFAD RESEARCH SERIES 17 - Population age structure and sex composition in sub-Saharan Africa: a rural-urban perspective," IFAD Research Series 280055, International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
    7. repec:lic:licosd:39517 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Emran, M. Shahe & Shilpi, Forhad, 2018. "Beyond dualism: Agricultural productivity, small towns, and structural change in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 264-276.
    9. Aktoty Aitzhanova & Shigeo Katsu & Johannes F. Linn & Vladislav Yezhov (ed.), 2014. "Kazakhstan 2050: Toward a Modern Society for All," Books, Emerging Markets Forum, edition 1, number kazakh2050, May.
    10. Mohajan, Haradhan, 2015. "Sustainable Development Policy of Global Economy," MPRA Paper 82815, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 30 Mar 2015.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tomoki Fujii, 2013. "Geographic decomposition of inequality in health and wealth: evidence from Cambodia," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 11(3), pages 373-392, September.
    2. Piyush Kant Rai & Sarla Pareek & Hemlata Joshi, 2017. "Met And Unmet Need For Contraception: Small Area Estimation For Rajasthan State Of India," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 18(2), pages 329-360, June.
    3. Lanjouw, P. & Marra, M.R., 2018. "Urban poverty across the spectrum of Vietnam’s towns and cities," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 295-306.
    4. Elbers, Chris & van der Weide, Roy, 2014. "Estimation of normal mixtures in a nested error model with an application to small area estimation of poverty and inequality," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6962, The World Bank.
    5. Lang, Corey & Barrett, Christopher B. & Naschold, Felix, 2013. "Targeting Maps: An Asset-Based Approach to Geographic Targeting," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 232-244.
    6. Rai Piyush Kant & Pareek Sarla & Joshi Hemlata, 2017. "Met and Unmet Need for Contraception: Small Area Estimation for Rajasthan State of India," Statistics in Transition New Series, Polish Statistical Association, vol. 18(2), pages 329-360, June.
    7. Claudio A. Agostini & Philip H. Brown, 2010. "Local Distributional Effects Of Government Cash Transfers In Chile," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 56(2), pages 366-388, June.
    8. Emwanu, Thomas & Hoogeveen, Johannes G. & Okiira Okwi, Paul, 2006. "Updating Poverty Maps with Panel Data," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 34(12), pages 2076-2088, December.
    9. Tarozzi, Alessandro, 2011. "Can census data alone signal heterogeneity in the estimation of poverty maps?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 170-185, July.
    10. Luc Christiaensen & Peter Lanjouw & Jill Luoto & David Stifel, 2012. "Small area estimation-based prediction methods to track poverty: validation and applications," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 10(2), pages 267-297, June.
    11. C. Peter Timmer, 2017. "Food Security, Structural Transformation, Markets and Government Policy," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(1), pages 4-19, January.
    12. Martin Ravallion, 2013. "The Idea of Antipoverty Policy," NBER Working Papers 19210, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Enamorado, Ted & López-Calva, Luis F. & Rodríguez-Castelán, Carlos & Winkler, Hernán, 2016. "Income inequality and violent crime: Evidence from Mexico's drug war," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 128-143.
    14. Marcel Fafchamps & Christine Moser, 2003. "Crime, Isolation and Law Enforcement," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 12(4), pages 625-671, December.
    15. Gibson, John, 2018. "Forest Loss and Economic Inequality in the Solomon Islands: Using Small-Area Estimation to Link Environmental Change to Welfare Outcomes," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 66-76.
    16. Matthieu Clément & Lucie Piaser, 2022. "Geography of Income and Education Inequalities in Mexico: Evidence from Small Area Estimation and Exploratory Spatial Analysis," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 34(2), pages 703-732, April.
    17. Modrego, Félix & Berdegué, Julio A., 2015. "A Large-Scale Mapping of Territorial Development Dynamics in Latin America," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 11-31.
    18. Dang, Hai-Anh & Lanjouw, Peter & Luoto, Jill & McKenzie, David, 2014. "Using repeated cross-sections to explore movements into and out of poverty," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 112-128.
    19. Marcel Fafchamps & Forhad Shilpi & The World Bank, 2004. "Isolation and Subjective Welfare," Economics Series Working Papers 216, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    20. Claudio A. Agostini & Philip H. Brown, 2011. "Cash Transfers And Poverty Reduction In Chile," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(3), pages 604-625, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    poverty and city size; urban poverty; slums.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R20 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inq:inqwps:ecineq2011-192. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maria Ana Lugo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecineea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.