Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
971825 Journal of Urban Economics 2012 11 Pages PDF
Abstract

This paper uses variations in international commodity prices and rainfall to construct instrumental variables estimates of the within-country effect that changes in the size of the agricultural sector and GDP per capita growth have on the urbanization rate. For a panel of 41 African countries during the period 1960–2007, the paper’s three main findings are that: (i) decreases in the share of agricultural value added lead to a significant increase in the urbanization rate; (ii) conditional on changes in the share of agricultural value added GDP per capita growth does not significantly affect the urbanization rate; (iii) increases in the urbanization rate had a significant negative average effect on GDP per capita growth.

Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Economics, Econometrics and Finance Economics and Econometrics
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