Economic growth, size of the agricultural sector, and urbanization in Africa

Markus Brückner

Journal of Urban Economics, 2012, vol. 71, issue 1, 26-36

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.

Keywords: Economic growth; Sectoral shocks; Urbanization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O0 O1 O4 R0 R3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (43)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:71:y:2012:i:1:p:26-36

DOI: 10.1016/j.jue.2011.08.004

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