For India's Rural Poor, Growing Towns Matter More than Growing Cities

Gibson, John ; Datt, Gaurav ; Murgai, Rinku ; Ravallion, Martin

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: cities;    towns;    rural poverty;    luminosity;    spatial economics;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7994
RP-ID  :  WPS7994

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

It is theoretically ambiguous whethergrowth of cities matters more to the rural poor than growthof towns. This paper empirically examines whether growth ofIndia's secondary towns or big cities mattered more torecent rural poverty reduction, noting that datadeficiencies have made this a difficult question to answerpreviously. Satellite observations of night lights are usedto measure urban growth on the extensive and intensivemargins in the context of a spatial Durbin fixed-effectsmodel of poverty measures for rural India, calibrated to apanel of 59 regions observed four times over 1993-2012. Theexpansion of lit area had greater effect on the ruralpoverty measures than did intensive margin growth in thebrightness of light from urban areas. For India'scurrent stage of development, growth of secondary towns maydo more to reduce rural poverty than big city growth,although the theoretical model suggests that cities mayeventually take over from towns as the drivers of ruralpoverty reduction.