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" The Role of Urbanization in African Human Development: "
Oranga, Beryl Adongo
Cohen, Michael A.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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1107729
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| Doc. No
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TLpq2454679257
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| Main Entry
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Cohen, Michael A.
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Oranga, Beryl Adongo
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| Title & Author
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The Role of Urbanization in African Human Development:\ Oranga, Beryl AdongoCohen, Michael A.
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| College
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The New School
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| Date
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2020
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| student score
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2020
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Page No
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167
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| Abstract
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Human development is about much more than income. It focuses on human capabilities and the opportunities to use them. While the use of money-metric measures is necessary for understanding the extent of people in poverty, it does not provide sufficient insight into the development process. A broader measure of well-being would seem to be particularly vital for considering population shifts that underlie almost every society's movement out of lower-income status. African countries are urbanizing at high rates, and yet, studies show that the number of people in poverty continues to grow, posing the question of whether urbanization leads to greater human development. This phenomenon motivates this dissertation as it uses the Human Development Index, as a measure of well-being, to investigate the role of urbanization in human development in Africa. The study uses the evolution of Fosu's work and his 2010 model as a base, which follows a common framework that considers growth and inequality as important factors that affect poverty and human development. The results indicate that efforts to deal with idiosyncratic qualities of data generation and analysis, such as lack of stationarity, omitted variables bias, and endogeneity, pose significant implications for inferences that can be drawn and their corresponding policies. As such, on empirical grounds, this study remains a cautionary tale. Nevertheless, some results appear to be relatively robust, and the case study of Ethiopia has substantiated the overall findings on African countries. First, the empirical results indicate that policies to improve economic growth are undoubtedly important, but, in contrast to the findings of some studies, so are distributional policies that improve the poor's circumstances. Second, contrary to widespread policies that discourage urbanization in Sub-Saharan Africa, the results suggest that urban growth improves human development. Third, efforts to smooth the demographic transition have a powerful effect on human development and should be encouraged. Finally, simulations of the model indicate that as currently formulated, the Sustainable Development Goal on poverty is unlikely to be achieved, raising the question of whether a more realistic goal provides stronger incentives to achieve the target.
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| Subject
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Economic theory
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Economics
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Public policy
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Urban planning
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