 Land Markets in the Harris‐Todaro Model: A New Factor Equilibrating Rural‐Urban MigrationJan Brueckner and Hyun‐A Kim Journal of Regional Science, 2001, vol. 41, issue 3, 507-520 Abstract: Recent research in the Harris‐Todaro (HT) tradition has added an important new element to the model by incorporating an urban land market. Brueckner and Zenou (1999) (hereafter BZ) argue that a model where migration equalizes expected wages between city and countryside may overlook another important force that equilibrates the process of rural‐urban migration. This force is the migration‐induced rise in the urban cost of living, which occurs principally through escalation of urban land rents as the city population expands. Land‐rent escalation, which tends to limit rural‐urban migration, provides an important additional force that may help determine city sizes in developing countries. The present paper provides a simpler alternative to BZ's analysis by assuming that urban residents smooth their income as they cycle between formal and informal employment. This allows migration decisions to be based on the expected wage, as in the usual HT framework, in a model that includes a land market. The analysis shows that this modified framework generates results slightly different from those of BZ. Date: 2001 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jregsc:v:41:y:2001:i:3:p:507-520 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article Journal of Regional Science is currently edited by Marlon G. Boarnet, Matthew Kahn and Mark D. Partridge More articles in Journal of Regional Science from Wiley Blackwell |
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