Urbanization and poverty reduction: the role of rural diversification and secondary towns1

A rather unique panel tracking more than 3,300 individuals from households in rural Kagera, Tanzania, during 1991/1994–2010 shows that about one out of two individuals/households who exited poverty did so by transitioning out of agriculture into the rural nonfarm economy or secondary towns. Only one out of seven exited poverty by migrating to the big cities, even though those moving to the city experienced on average faster consumption growth. Further analysis of a much larger cross‐country panel of 51 developing countries cannot reject that rural diversification and secondary town development lead to more inclusive growth patterns than metropolitization. Indications are that this follows because more of the poor find their way to the rural nonfarm economy and secondary towns, than to distant cities. The development discourse would benefit from shifting beyond the rural–urban dichotomy and focusing more instead on how best to urbanize and develop its rural nonfarm economy and secondary towns.     

基于居民生活质量视角的山东城镇相对贫困测度研究

随着2020年农村绝对贫困即将消除,城镇相对贫困问题日渐凸显,阻碍城镇经济及社会的发展,故城镇相对贫困将成为贫困治理的新重点。以山东省为例,从居民生活质量视角对城镇相对贫困进行测度研究,结果发现,福利基础、城镇建设、居民生活状态等指标不同程度地影响着城镇相对贫困。为此,提出了要各方面同时发力,做好顶层设计,建立多元化体系,深化居民生活质量标准,以达到缓解城镇相对贫困问题,提高居民生活质量的目的建议。     

Agrarian Poverty,Nutrition and Economic Class – A Study of Gujarat,India

This paper analyses poverty and calorific undernourishment in the Indian state of Gujarat, where high and market‐led industrial growth has resulted in rapid economic improvement. The study is carried out through a combination of secondary and survey‐based data. We conclude that the neoliberal agenda of uncontrolled, outward‐looking growth has not resulted in significant reduction of poverty or malnourishment in rural areas. Furthermore, while land ownership is officially used as a proxy for wealth distribution, class position appears a better predictor of poverty status in the rural areas than landownership per se. At the policy level, there is a need to revive the agrarian economy and create new non‐agricultural assets, and the primary focus in the state must shift to the distribution of created assets rather than a single‐minded focus on growth.     

Implications of the global growth slowdown for rural poverty

Over the past 25 years, higher growth in developing countries has contributed to a dramatic fall in global poverty, although poverty rates in rural areas remain higher than in urban areas. Unfortunately, projected growth rates have fallen in recent years; this article examines the impact of this slowdown on the poor, particularly the rural poor. It first uses a global model to assess the impacts of lower productivity on key price and income variables. It then uses microsimulation models for almost 300,000 households to assess the impacts on their real incomes. Although poverty rates overall are projected to fall substantially, the poorest countries see the greatest slowdown in poverty reduction, with over 5% of their population projected to remain below the poverty line. In addition, poverty rates will remain alarmingly high in many countries. Overall, 38 million fewer people will leave extreme poverty compared to earlier projections. Farm households are at particular risk in middle‐income countries, with over 1.5% more of the farming population remaining trapped in poverty than previously estimated. By 2030, average extreme poverty in rural areas is projected at about 7.5%, rather than 7.1% under the earlier growth projections. Clearly, a strong focus on policies for poverty reduction will be vital for eliminating poverty by 2030.     

World food prices and poverty in Indonesia

Spikes in international food prices in 2007–2008 worsened poverty incidence in Indonesia, both rural and urban, but only by small amounts. The paper reaches this conclusion using a multisectoral and multihousehold general equilibrium model of the Indonesian economy. The negative effect on poor consumers, operating through their living costs, outweighed the positive effect on poor farmers, operating through their incomes. Indonesia's post‐2004 rice import restrictions shielded its internal rice market from the temporary world price increases, muting the increase in poverty. But it did this only by imposing large and permanent increases in both domestic rice prices and poverty incidence. Poverty incidence increased more among rural than urban people, even though higher agricultural prices mean higher incomes for many of the rural poor. Gains to poor farmers were outweighed by the losses incurred by the large number of rural poor who are net buyers of food, and the fact that food represents a large share of their total budgets, even larger on average than for the urban poor. The main beneficiaries of higher food prices are not the rural poor, but the owners of agricultural land and capital, many of whom are urban based.     

Sectoral and poverty impacts of agricultural policy adjustments in Colombia

We aim to assess the sectoral and poverty impacts of changes in agricultural policy in Colombia. For this, we use an agriculture specialized static computable general equilibrium model, together with a microsimulation model that allows employment to shift between sectors. Results indicate that the sectoral impact from policy changes tends to be small and that it considerably varies across crops. The macro model yields some gains in wages and capital rents, a relatively larger increase in land rents, and limited labor reallocation, together leading to small poverty impacts as calculated through the microsimulation model. The incidence of rural poverty decreases by less than 1% and the same happens to the poverty gap. In addition, poverty reductions are concentrated among households near the middle of the income distribution.     

Rural–Urban Impacts of CAP Measures in Greece: An Inter‐regional SAM Approach

This paper evaluates the inter‐regional impacts of CAP measures implemented in the rural town of Archanes (Crete, Greece), an area which received considerable EU Agricultural Guarantee and rural development funds during the 1990s. A hybrid, three‐area Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) with three groups of households defined by income level is constructed to describe inter‐linkages between three rural–urban localities, namely the rural area of Archanes, the less‐developed, agriculturally dependent, neighbouring rural area of N. Kazantzakis, and the adjacent urban centre of Heraklion. Results are reported on the diffusion patterns of economic impacts generated by three types of CAP measure: farm income support; aids to increased agricultural productivity; aids to economic diversification. These show that the diffusion of policy‐induced economic impacts from Archanes is lower than might be expected for a small open local economy, and that benefits leak primarily to Heraklion and marginally to rural N. Kazantzakis. Finally, generated income benefits seem to accrue mostly in favour of high‐income households, especially in the case of Guarantee subsidies.     

Agriculture and economic growth in Ethiopia: growth multipliers from a four-sector simulation model

Agriculture accounts for over half of Ethiopian GDP, yet 'he case for agriculture as a focus of economic growth strategies must rely on identifying a set of intersectoral linkages through which agricultural growth contributes to the growth of nonagriculture in the Ethiopian economy. This article develops a four-sector numerical simulation model of economic growth in Ethiopia which permits the calculation of macroeconomic growth multipliers resulting from income shocks to agriculture, services, modern industry, and traditional industry. The resulting growth multipliers are 1.54 for agriculture. 1.80 for services, 1.34 for modern industry, and 1.22 for traditional industry. These results depict an economy in which intersectoral linkages operate on a highly uneven basis. These limits are reflected in the wide disparity between sectoral growth multipliers and by substantial differences in the patterns ol their decomposition. The policy relevance of these findings relate, in part, to the distributional implications of growth in particular sectors. Poverty in Ethiopia is disproportionately rural. An income shock to agriculture is clearly the most progressive choice, indicating the need to highlight agricultural development in growth strategies for Ethiopia. Yet, the simulation results further indicate that doing so imposes relatively little trade off against total benefit. While a $1 service sector income shock generates $0.80 in indirect benefits, a $1 agricultural income shock still generates $0.54 in indirect gains-a somewhat smaller benelit, but one likely to make the greatest possible impact on poverty reduction.     

基于分型理论的四川秦巴山区城镇体系研究

秦巴山区被列为我国11个连片特困地区,在我国"十三五"精准扶贫工作的背景下,对四川秦巴山区城镇体系的研究具有重要意义。基于非线性科学分形理论以及GIS相关软件的运用,对四川秦巴山区城镇体系的城市首位度、规模等级分形特征、空间向心性分形、均衡性分形、关联性分形等方面进行分析,得出四川秦巴山区城镇体系具有明显的分形特征,但是首位城市不突出、城镇体系呈现扁平,以通川区为中心的集聚性显著,城镇空间分布结构不紧凑,交通网络发育度亟待提高。以上结论可以为四川秦巴山区城镇规划提供有针对性的理论依据和引导对策,为同类型地区城镇体系研究提供科学参考。     

The evolution of the wage gap between rural migrants and the urban labour force in Chinese cities

An increasing earning gap between rural migrants and urban residents has recently aroused public concern about rising urban poverty asscociated with migration of rural people into Chinese cities. To address the issue, this paper explores the possibility of wage assimilation for rural migrants towards their urban counterparts and its determinants between 1999 and 2009, by applying an economic assimilation model to analyse a repeated cross‐sectional data for seven Chinese cites at the individual level. The results show that rural migrants' earnings do not assimilate to their urban counterparts, although the situation improves gradually over time. This implies that institutional and policy barriers impede the assimilation process of rural migrants, which supports the call for further labour market reforms.     

Poverty decline, agricultural wages, and nonfarm employment in rural India: 1983–2004

We analyze five rounds of National Sample Survey data covering 1983, 1987/1988, 1993/1994, 1999/2000, and 2004/2005 to explore the relationship between rural diversification and poverty. Poverty in rural India has declined at a modest rate during this time period. We provide region-level estimates that illustrate considerable geographic heterogeneity in this progress. Poverty estimates correlate well with region-level NSS data on changes in agricultural wage rates. Agricultural labor remains the preserve of the uneducated and also to a large extent of the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. We show that while agricultural labor grew as a share of total economic activity over the first four rounds, it had fallen back to the levels observed at the beginning of our survey period by 2004. This all-India trajectory also masks widely varying trends across states. During this period, the rural nonfarm sector has grown modestly, mainly between the last two survey rounds. Regular nonfarm employment remains largely associated with education levels and social status that are rare among the poor. However, casual labor and self-employment in the nonfarm sector reveals greater involvement by disadvantaged groups in 2004 than in the preceding rounds. The implication of this for poverty is not immediately clear—the poor may be pushed into low-return casual nonfarm activities due to lack of opportunities in the agricultural sector rather than being pulled by high returns offered by the nonfarm sector. Econometric estimates reveal that expansion of the nonfarm sector is associated with falling poverty via two routes: a direct impact on poverty that is likely due to a pro-poor marginal incidence of nonfarm employment expansion; and an indirect impact attributable to the positive effect of nonfarm employment growth on agricultural wages. The analysis also confirms the important contribution to rural poverty reduction from agricultural productivity, availability of land, and consumption levels in proximate urban areas.     

农村劳动力转移的减贫及其空间溢出效应——基于省级面板数据的分析

目的 旨在探讨农村劳动力转移的减贫及其空间溢出效应，以期准确估计农村劳动力转移对农村减贫的作用。方法 文章基于我国大陆31个省（市、自治区）的面板数据，通过构建空间计量模型，设置邻接、地理和经济3种空间权重矩阵，实证检验了2007—2017年农村劳动力转移对农村贫困的影响。结果 （1）我国省域农村贫困发生率和农村劳动力转移程度均有显著的空间集聚特征，农村贫困发生率呈现出“高—高”和“低—低”的空间分布特征。（2）在邻接权重下，该地区农村劳动力转移规模每提高1%，使得该地区的农村贫困降低了0.317%，邻近地区的农村贫困降低了0.136%；在地理权重下，该地区农村劳动力转移规模每提高1%，使该地区的农村贫困降低了0.323%，邻近地区的农村贫困降低了0.129%；在经济权重下，该地区农村劳动力转移规模每提高1%，将使该地区的农村贫困降低0.315%，邻近地区的农村贫困降低0.192%。结论 农村劳动力转移不仅有利于本区域内的农村贫困减少，还可以通过溢出效应来缓解相邻地区的农村贫困。     

Some Consequences of the 1994–1995 Coffee Boom for Growth and Poverty Reduction in Uganda

This paper reports a computable general equilibrium analysis that explores the consequences of the 1994–1995 increase in the international price of coffee for Uganda's economy. Evidence is found for a small effect on both medium‐term growth and poverty reduction. Aid dependence is among the reasons why this effect is not found to be larger. Major beneficiary groups are not primarily the farmers to which the windfall initially accrued, but urban wage earners and the urban self‐employed.     

我国城镇化建设进程与道路选择因素

小城镇自我国改革开放以来得到了很大的发展，它对于促进我国农村地区的经济发展起到了积极作用。本文对改革开放以来，我国出现的城镇化建设理论的发展进程进行了扼要的回顾，并提出了我国城镇化建设的四种道路选择因素。     

The impact of migration on rural poverty and inequality: a case study in China

Large numbers of agricultural labor moved from the countryside to cities after the economic reforms in China. Migration and remittances play an important role in transforming the structure of rural household income. This article examines the impact of rural‐to‐urban migration on rural poverty and inequality in a mountainous area of Hubei province using the data of a 2002 household survey. Since migration income is a potential substitute for farm income, we present counterfactual scenarios of what rural income, poverty, and inequality would have been in the absence of migration. Our results show that, by providing alternatives to households with lower marginal labor productivity in agriculture, migration leads to an increase in rural income. In contrast to many studies that suggest that the increasing share of nonfarm income in total income widens inequality, this article offers support for the hypothesis that migration tends to have egalitarian effects on rural income for three reasons: (1) migration is rational self‐selection—farmers with higher expected return in agricultural activities and/or in local nonfarm activities choose to remain in the countryside while those with higher expected return in urban nonfarm sectors migrate; (2) households facing binding constraints of land supply are more likely to migrate; (3) poorer households benefit disproportionately from migration.     

Demand for meat and dairy products by Turkish households: a Bayesian censored system approach

We extend the Tobit (censored) linear equation system procedure to utility‐theoretic demand functions, along with a mapping mechanism to impose the adding‐up restriction implied by consumer utility maximization theory—a theoretical restriction very often ignored in previous empirical studies with censored demand systems. In this context, the Bayesian Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) procedure is applied to the censored linear approximate almost ideal demand system (LAIDS) for 12 food products, using data from the Turkish Household Expenditure Survey. All own‐price elasticities are negative and expenditure elasticities positive. Uncompensated own‐price elasticities for rural households are generally much higher than those for their urban peers, though demand for most food products are own‐price elastic for both types of households. The differential patterns in demand elasticities between urban and rural households become even more evident (almost twice) as relatively more expensive foodstuffs are consumed, showing that accessibilities to alternative products have made rural Turkish households more cognizant toward price changes in foods. Household characteristics play a key role in food expenditures, notably so in urban areas, and regional and seasonal differences are also present.     

Rural Residential Land Transition in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region: Spatial-Temporal Patterns and Policy Implications

Rural residential land transition (RRLT) dominates rural land use transition. Therefore, analysing the laws of transition and differentiation of land use is not only the basis for the differential management of rural residential areas but key to the sustainable use of rural land. This study constructs a conceptual model of RRLT using multi-period remote sensing monitoring data based on a comprehensive index method, ArcGIS, and FRAGSTATS landscape pattern analysis, among others. It also analyses the characteristics of the transition extent, transition trend, transition morphology, and transition intensity of rural residential land in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region from 1980 to 2018. The results show that, from a vertical comparison of long time series, the transition extent is characterised by a process of ‘slow growth—expanding start—fast expansion—slowing down’; the transition trend is characterised by an increase in the amount of cultivated land occupied by rural residential land, followed by a large number of rural residential land is reclaimed as cultivated land; the transition morphology is characterised by an increase in mean patch size and degree of irregularity, as well as aggregation; and the transition intensity is characterised by fluctuations in the process of ‘small-scale reduction—small-scale growth—substantial growth—small-scale growth and reduction’. A horizontal comparison of counties in the BTH region reveals a long-lasting and active growth trend in transition extent and transition intensity in the Beijing-Tianjin region, and a gradually slowing trend in the areas around the region. The transition morphology features of the northwest Hebei region are more prominent, and show that the scale of rural settlements is small, the plaques fragmented and irregular, and the layout more scattered. The BTH region should formulate a differentiated transition direction for rural residential areas based on the different functional areas, and play into the agglomeration, scale, and synergy effects of urban agglomerations. It should also coordinate and improve the human–land relationship in rural areas, and construct an orderly and densely distributed pattern of urban and rural spatial development with a reasonable layout and complementary functions.     

Agricultural Growth and Inter‐Sectoral Linkages in a Developing Economy

Does growth in the manufacturing sector of an economy spillover to agriculture, or do sectors share similar growth rates only when they share some common exogenous stimuli? The limited number of investigations of this issue, for cross‐sections of countries, have found some evidence in favour of spillovers, though the methodologies used cannot readily separate correlation from causation. Adapting the Feder (1982) model of sectoral externalities to a time‐series context, we examine how far agricultural output in Malaysia has been affected by inter‐sectoral spillovers. Our results suggest that expansion of manufacturing output, though associated with reduced agricultural output in the short‐run, is associated with agricultural expansion over the long‐run. Service output growth on the other hand seems to have been inimical to agricultural growth in both the short‐ and long‐runs, while causality testing supports the case for spillovers rather than “common causes”. Evidence on sectoral productivity is consistent with neoclassical arguments suggesting that the benefits of higher productivity in manufacturing tend to spill over to agriculture, encouraging productivity convergence.     

山西省城乡绿化的生态效益评价

[目的]城乡绿化对改善地区生态气候,提高空气环境质量具有重要作用。研究山西省城乡绿化规划带来的生态效益,为今后城乡规划提供理论依据。[方法]采用熵值法,在评定山西省11个地级市PM2. 5,PM10,二氧化硫,二氧化氮年平均浓度和空气质量达标天数等5个指标的基础上,综合分析2014—2016年山西省各地级市城乡绿化带来的生态效益。[结果] 2015年山西省城乡绿化带来的生态效益相比2014年和2016年较为明显。在各地级市中,大同市城乡绿化带来的生态效益明显高于其他城市,且各项指标评分均较高。大部分地区PM2. 5、PM10、二氧化氮和二氧化硫的浓度超出了国家二级标准要求,环境质量令人堪忧。[结论]山西省各地级市在城乡规划中应加大对绿化的投入,选择对空气具有净化作用的植物,加强对绿化植物的监管等,综合提高城乡绿化的生态效益,促进环境和社会经济的协调发展。     

Taken for a ride? Mainstreaming periurban transport with urban expansion policies

This article describes the transportation needs and practices of periurban residents in a village in the Gurgaon district of the Northwestern Indian state of Haryana. As conurbations grow, urban authorities place much emphasis on connecting them with other major cities or towns. Improving their connectivity with the peripheral villages receives scant attention. This ignores the duality of economies that operates within the newly created urban spaces. This article argues that this reflects a bias in and politics of urban planning that accepts the hegemony of cities to the peril of rural areas that support them and with whom crucial rural–urban links evolve with urbanization. Using a qualitative research design, an ethnographic approach and a diversity of data sources, this article shows how social heterogeneity, land use change and other transformations in rural–urban links brought on by urbanization shape periurban transportation needs and practices. Though the acquisition of private means of transport is made possible through the sale of agricultural lands by the periurban elite, the article shows the increasing role of shared private transport in linking the village with the city. Urban authorities focus on connecting growing cities with other major urban centers; however, the article argues that linking them better with peripheral villages will be essential for making processes of urbanization equitable and sustainable and have wider spin-off effects. Such interventions need to be based on a nuanced understanding of transition processes underway in periurban spaces as well as the complementary roles of private, public and shared private transport.