Can cities or towns drive African development? Economy-wide analysis for Ethiopia and Uganda

Arbeitspapier

Rapid urbanization is an important characteristic of African development and yet the structural transformation debate focuses on agriculture's relative merits without also considering the benefits from urban agglomeration. As a result, African governments are often provided conflicting recommendations on the importance of rural agriculture or urban industry. We develop dynamic economy-wide models for Ethiopia and Uganda that capture both traditional aspects of the debate (growth linkages and foreign trade) and benefits from urbanization (internal migration and agglomeration effects). Simulations suggest that urban agglomeration is an important source of long-term growth and structural transformation, but that investing in cities does not greatly reduce national poverty over the short-term. In this regard, agricultural growth is more effective, albeit with slower national growth. Given these trade-offs, we conclude that the urbanization's benefits argue against an agro-fundamentalist approach to African development, but the short-term imperative of reducing poverty necessitates further agricultural investment.

Object Details

• ISBN: 978-92-9230-513-0
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: WIDER Working Paper ; No. 2012/50

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models ; Economic Development: Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure ; Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes ; Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics
• Subject: urbanization ; rural development ; growth ; poverty ; CGE model ; Africa ; Urbanisierung ; Entwicklung ; Ländliche Entwicklung ; Armut ; CGE-Modelling ; Allgemeines Gleichgewicht ; Äthiopien ; Uganda

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Dorosh, Paul ; Thurlow, James
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER)
• (where): Helsinki
• (when): 2012

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/81069
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET