Population Growth, Industrial Revolutions, and the Urban Transition

Abstract

Most conventional demographic attempts to construct a long run model of the urbanization process in developing countries assume the rural-urban migration rate to be exogenous to or at least independent of economic forces. The model presented here is one in which rural-urban migration is endogenous and responsive to various macroeconomic and macro-demographic forces. There are however certain exogenous variables which can and must be taken into consideration for this model. They are 1) population pressure and demographic transition; 2) unbalanced productivity advance; 3) adverse terms of trade between primary products and manufactures; 4) the relative scarcity of imported fuels and raw materials; 5) the increasing scarcity of arable land; and 6) the relative austerity of international capital markets and limits on the availability of foreign capital. Another property that a long run model of the urbanization process must possess is closure which is loosely defined by the requirement that the model exhibit feedback and interaction between sectors as well as flexibility in production and consumption. Finally an accurate long run model of urbanization must replicate the recent past in the areas of economic growth economic structure and urbanization. This model accurately replicated these events in the years 1960-1973. It is believed therefore that the model proposed is superior to conventional demographic models for projecting world urban transiton. (summary in ENG FRE SPA)