Urbanization and Structural Transformation

66 Pages Posted: 18 Dec 2008

See all articles by Guy Michaels

Guy Michaels

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP); London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE)

Ferdinand Rauch

University of Vienna - Department of Economics

Stephen J. Redding

Princeton University

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: October 2008

Abstract

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

Keywords: Gibrat's Law, Structural Transformation, Urbanization

JEL Classification: E20, R11, R12

Suggested Citation

Michaels, Guy and Michaels, Guy and Rauch, Ferdinand and Redding, Stephen J., Urbanization and Structural Transformation (October 2008). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP7016, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1311140

Guy Michaels

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) - Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) ( email )

Houghton Street
London WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) ( email )

Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

Ferdinand Rauch

University of Vienna - Department of Economics ( email )

Vienna, A-1210
Austria

Stephen J. Redding (Contact Author)

Princeton University ( email )

Princeton, NJ 08544-1021
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.princeton.edu/~reddings/

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