Agriculture, transportation and the timing of urbanization: Global analysis at the grid cell level

This paper addresses the timing of a location's historical transition from rural to urban activity. We test whether urbanization occurs sooner in places with higher agricultural potential and comparatively lower transport costs, using worldwide data that divide the earth's surface at half-...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of economic growth (Boston, Mass.) Mass.), 2014-09, Vol.19 (3), p.339-368
Main Authors: Motamed, Mesbah J., Florax, Raymond J.G.M., Masters, William A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
21st century
Agricultural land
Agriculture
Coasts
Continents
Countries
Crop economics
Diamonds
Domestication
Economic development
Economic geography
Economic Growth
Economic models
Economic statistics
Economic theory
Economics
Economics and Finance
Frost
Geography
Hypotheses
Income concentration
International Economics
Macroeconomics/Monetary Economics//Financial Economics
Mortality
Per capita income
Population density
Productivity
Spatial models
Studies
Technology adoption
Topographical elevation
Transport
Transport infrastructure
Transport planning
Transportation
Urbanization
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper addresses the timing of a location's historical transition from rural to urban activity. We test whether urbanization occurs sooner in places with higher agricultural potential and comparatively lower transport costs, using worldwide data that divide the earth's surface at half-degree intervals into 62,290 cells. From an independent estimate of each cell's rural and urban population history over the last 2,000 years, we identify the date at which each cell achieves various thresholds of urbanization. Controlling for unobserved heterogeneity across countries through fixed effects and using a variety of spatial econometric techniques, we find a robust association between earlier urbanization and agro-climatic suitability for cultivation, having seasonal frosts, better access to the ocean or navigable rivers, and lower elevation. These geographic correlations become smaller in magnitude as urbanization proceeds, and there is some variation in the effects across continents. Aggregating cells into countries, we show that an earlier urbanization date is associated with higher per capita income today.
ISSN:1381-4338
1573-7020
DOI:10.1007/s10887-014-9104-x