Shortage, Priority and Urban Growth: Towards a Theory of Urbanisation under Central Planning

Örjan Sjoberg
Additional contact information
Örjan Sjoberg: Stockholm School of Economics, PO Box 6501, SE-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden, orjan.sjoberg@hhs.se.

Urban Studies, 1999, vol. 36, issue 13, 2217-2236

Abstract: Extending previous work on urbanisation under central planning, this paper sets out from the economics of shortage to develop a model of urban growth in socialist societies. Implying a focus on the effects of investments on employment and hence urban growth, this model also takes the propensity of producers to hoard labour into account. Such behaviour, it is argued, generates continued employment expansions over and above that created by the original decision to invest. Furthermore, and unlike earlier work in this tradition, an attempt is made to account for regionally differentiated outcomes within individual economies. To this end, the notion of priority is introduced. The resulting model-delineating archetypal 'landscapes of priority'—not only captures the typical sequence of urbanisation experienced by many, if not most, of the former socialist states of Europe and Asia, but also indicates from where the economies in transition from central planning have to proceed.

Date: 1999
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1080/0042098992395 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:36:y:1999:i:13:p:2217-2236

DOI: 10.1080/0042098992395

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Urban Studies from Urban Studies Journal Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().