Secondary Towns and Poverty Reduction: Refocusing the Urbanization Agenda

Luc Christiaensen and Ravi Kanbur

No 10637, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This review is framed around the exploration of a central hypothesis: A shift in public investment towards secondary towns from big cities will improve poverty reduction performance. Of course the hypothesis raises many questions. What exactly is the dichotomy of secondary towns versus big cities? What is the evidence for the contribution of secondary towns versus cities to poverty reduction? What are the economic mechanisms for such a differential contribution and how does policy interact with them? We find preliminary evidence and arguments in support of our hypothesis, but the impacts of policy on poverty are quite complex even in simple settings, and the question of secondary towns and poverty reduction is an open area for research and policy analysis.

Keywords: secondary towns; poverty reduction; mega cities; urbanization; rural-urban migration; Zipf's Law (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I32 J61 O18 R12 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 26 pages
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (25)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Secondary Towns and Poverty Reduction: Refocusing the Urbanization Agenda (2017)
Working Paper: Secondary Towns and Poverty Reduction: Refocusing the Urbanization Agenda (2017)
Working Paper: Secondary towns and poverty reduction: refocusing the urbanization agenda (2016)
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