For India's Rural Poor, Growing Towns Matter More than Growing Cities
It is theoretically ambiguous whether growth of cities matters more to the rural poor than growth of towns. This paper empirically examines whether growth of India's secondary towns or big cities mattered more to recent rural poverty reduction...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Language: | English en_US |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2017
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/903311488807371325/For-Indias-rural-poor-growing-towns-matter-more-than-growing-cities http://hdl.handle.net/10986/26244 |
| Summary: | It is theoretically ambiguous whether
growth of cities matters more to the rural poor than growth
of towns. This paper empirically examines whether growth of
India's secondary towns or big cities mattered more to
recent rural poverty reduction, noting that data
deficiencies have made this a difficult question to answer
previously. Satellite observations of night lights are used
to measure urban growth on the extensive and intensive
margins in the context of a spatial Durbin fixed-effects
model of poverty measures for rural India, calibrated to a
panel of 59 regions observed four times over 1993-2012. The
expansion of lit area had greater effect on the rural
poverty measures than did intensive margin growth in the
brightness of light from urban areas. For India's
current stage of development, growth of secondary towns may
do more to reduce rural poverty than big city growth,
although the theoretical model suggests that cities may
eventually take over from towns as the drivers of rural
poverty reduction. |
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