Poverty Reduction during the Rural-Urban Transformation: Rural Development is Still More Important than Urbanisation

Katsushi Imai, Raghav Gaiha and Alessandra Garbero
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Raghav Gaiha: Global Development Institute, University of Manchester, U.K. and Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard University Boston, USA

No DP2016-25, Discussion Paper Series from Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University

Abstract: Based on cross-country panel datasets, we find that (i) an increase in population share in agriculture is associated with poverty reduction once the longer- term poverty change or the dynamic is taken into account; (ii) rural non-agricultural sector also is poverty reducing in some cases; and (iii) increased population in the mega cities has no role in poverty reduction. In fact, the growth of population in mega cities is “poverty-increasing” in a few cases. Given that a rapid population growth or rural-urban migration is likely to increase poverty, more emphasis should be placed on policies that enhance support for rural agricultural and non-agricultural sectors. If our analysis has any validity, doubts are raised about recent research emphasising the role of secondary towns or urbanisation as the main driver of extreme poverty reduction.

Keywords: Inequality; Poverty; Growth; Agriculture; Non-agriculture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C20 I15 I39 O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2016-07, Revised 2017-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (27)

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https://www.rieb.kobe-u.ac.jp/academic/ra/dp/English/DP2016-25.pdf Revised version, 2017 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Poverty reduction during the rural–urban transformation: Rural development is still more important than urbanisation (2017)
Working Paper: Poverty Reduction during the Rural-Urban Transformation: Rural Development is still more important than Urbanisation? (2014)
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