APL (Ajiken Power Lunch)

APL (Ajiken Power Lunch) is a lunchtime workshop open to public, including IDE staffs, visiting research fellows, IDEAS students, outside researchers and graduate students. This workshop provides a platform for presentation of any work in progress where we can discuss in either English or Japanese.

Those who would attend a seminar are asked to announce yourself to receptionists on your arrival at the IDE and to obtain APL Organizers' signature on your admission card after the seminar.

September 27, 2016. (Tuesday) 15：00-16：30

Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization C22 Meeting Room 　

Urbanization and Economic Development: A Tale of Two Barriers

In this paper we determine the main driving forces underlying the structural transformation and urbanization process in rapidly industrializing countries. We use a dynamic, small open economy model with an abundant supply of surplus labor in rural areas, two types of traded goods man-ufactured in urban areas, and barriers to both trade and migration. The model is supplemented with quantitative analysis …tting the data from China, to explore the role that reductions in trade and migration barriers played in China’s growth and urbanization. We …nd that the primary drivers for real per capita GDP growth are migration cost reduction and skill accumulation. While trade liberalization is important for urbanization during the transition toward China’s admission to the WTO it does not contribute much to real per capita GDP growth. During this transition process, migration cost reduction and TFP changes are also important, accounting for a signi…cant proportion of increased urbanization.

Ping Wang (Washington University)

Toshitaka GOKAN

English