Urbanisation, education and the growth backlog of Africa

Aysegul Kayaoglu; Joaquín Naval

doi:10.1093/JAE/EJX019

Urbanisation, education and the growth backlog of Africa

Aysegul Kayaoglu^*, Joaquín Naval

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Economics

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Human capital accumulation and urbanisation play a decisive role in the analysis of growth and development. Stylised facts reveal a positive association between human capital accumulation, urbanisation and growth for both over time and across countries. While Africa has the fastest increasing human capital accumulation and urbanisation growth, it is the region experiencing the slowest economic growth. This paper argues that the adjustment costs resulting from rapid urbanisation can explain this paradox. In other words, low or negative social return to education in the short-run might be due to transitory adjustment or urbanisation costs. We build a simple growth model with two sectors, calibrate its parameters and then use it to simulate the African trajectory of human capital, urban population and GDP per capita. While we predict greater growth rates in future decades (backlog) convergence with highincome countries will be limited. The current levels of GDP per capita could have been reached 15 years earlier if it were not for the adjustment costs.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	584-606
Number of pages	23
Journal	Journal of African Economies
Volume	26
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/JAE/EJX019
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2017

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author 2017.

Funding

We would like to thank Douglas Gollin and two anonymous referees for their comments that have guided us to improve this work. This paper has benefited from the comments and suggestions offered by Abdurrahman Aydemir, Jordi Caballé, Frédéric Docquier, Catherine Guirkinger, Bénédicte Meert, William Parienté, Luca Pensieroso and participants of the Doctoral Workshop at the Université Catholique de Louvain and 11th European Economics and Finance Society Conference. The first author acknowledges financial support from the ARC convention on ‘Geographical Mobility of Factors’ (convention 09/14-019). All errors and omissions that may remain are the sole responsibility of the authors.

Funders	Funder number
Appalachian Regional Commission	09/14-019

Keywords

Economic development
Growth backlog
Human capital
Sub-Saharan Africa
Urbanisation

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1093/JAE/EJX019

Cite this

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Urbanisation, education and the growth backlog of Africa

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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