Urban growth and uninsured rural risk: Booming towns in bust times

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Poelhekke, Steven
• 署名单位: European Central Bank; De Nederlandsche Bank NV
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2010.07.007
• 发表日期: 2011
• 页码: 461-475
• 关键词: Urbanization; RISK; natural resources; volatility; Rural-urban migration

摘要

Rapid urbanization also happens when economic growth and urban job creation are absent, such as in Africa and Latin America during the eighties. Why do some countries urbanize faster while having worse economic growth? This paper finds that higher aggregate agricultural risk induces rural-urban migration, providing an additional channel to explain the urbanization trend. Uninsurable expected risk will lead to rural-urban migration as a form of ex-ante insurance if households are liquidity constrained and cannot overcome adverse shocks. The effect is robust to controlling for the traditional view of urbanization driven by industrialization, and to several alternative explanations such as government spending. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.