Is India’s Manufacturing Sector Moving Away from Cities?

Ghani, Ejaz ; Goswami, Arti Grover ; Kerr, William R.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ADB;    AGGLOMERATION ECONOMIES;    AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT;    BUILDING REGULATIONS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-6271
RP-ID  :  WPS6271

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper investigates the urbanizationof the Indian manufacturing sector by combining enterprisedata from formal and informal sectors. It finds that plantsin the formal sector are moving away from urban and intorural locations, while the informal sector is moving fromrural to urban locations. Although the secular trend forIndia's manufacturing urbanization has slowed down, thelocalized importance of education and infrastructure hasnot. The results suggest that districts with bettereducation and infrastructure have experienced a faster paceof urbanization, although higher urban-rural cost ratioscause movement out of urban areas. This process isassociated with improvements in the spatial allocation ofplants across urban and rural locations. Spatial location ofplants has implications for policy on investments ineducation, infrastructure, and the livability of cities. Thehigh share of urbanization occurring in the informal sectorsuggests that urbanization policies that containinclusionary approaches may be more successful in promotinglocal development and managing its strains than thosefocused only on the formal sector. Cities are evolving inIndia from places of goods production to forges of humancapital and coping mechanisms for survival.