《Economic growth》.pdf

Journal of Urban Economics 71 (2012) 26–36 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Urban Economics /locate/jue Economic growth, size of the agricultural sector, and urbanization in Africa Markus Brückner School of Economics, University of Adelaide, Australia a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t Article history: This paper uses variations in international commodity prices and rainfall to construct instrumental vari- Received 28 February 2011 ables estimates of the within-country effect that changes in the size of the agricultural sector and GDP per Revised 21 August 2011 capita growth have on the urbanization rate. For a panel of 41 African countries during the period 1960– Available online 30 August 2011 2007, the paper’s three main findings are that: (i) decreases in the share of agricultural value added lead to a significant increase in the urbanization rate; (ii) conditional on changes in the share of agricultural JEL classification: value added GDP per capita growth does not significantly affect the urbanization rate; (iii) increases in O0 the urbanization rate had a significant negative average effect on GDP per capita growth. R0 O1 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. O4 R3 Keywords: Economic growth Sectoral shocks Urbaniza