Measuring Urban Economic Density

Agglomeration economies are at the heart of urban economics, driving the existence and extent of cities and are central to structural transformation and the urbanization process. This paper evaluates the use of different measures of economic densit...

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Main Authors:	Henderson, J. Vernon, Nigmatulina, Dzhamilya, Kriticos, Sebastian
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2018
Subjects:	URBANIZATION URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POPULATION DENSITY AGGLOMERATION SCALE ECONOMIES LAND USE
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/180351545079578387/Measuring-Urban-Economic-Density http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31080

id	okr-10986-31080
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-310802022-09-20T00:14:47Z Measuring Urban Economic Density Henderson, J. Vernon Nigmatulina, Dzhamilya Kriticos, Sebastian URBANIZATION URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POPULATION DENSITY AGGLOMERATION SCALE ECONOMIES LAND USE Agglomeration economies are at the heart of urban economics, driving the existence and extent of cities and are central to structural transformation and the urbanization process. This paper evaluates the use of different measures of economic density in assessing urban agglomeration effects, by examining how well they explain household income differences across cities and neighborhoods in six African countries. The paper examines simple scale and density measures and more nuanced ones that capture the extent of clustering within cities. The evidence suggests that more nuanced measures attempting to capture within-city differences in the extent of clustering do no better than a simple density measure in explaining income differences across cities, at least for the current degree of accuracy in measuring clustering. However, simple city scale measures, such as total population, are inferior to density measures and to some degree misleading. The analysis finds large household income premiums from being in bigger and particularly denser cities over rural areas in Africa, indicating that migration pull forces remain very strong in the structural transformation process. Moreover, the marginal effects of increases in urban density on household income are very large, with density elasticities of 0.6. In addition to strong city-level density effects, the analysis finds strong neighborhood effects. For household incomes, overall city density and density of the neighborhood matter. 2018-12-28T15:56:58Z 2018-12-28T15:56:58Z 2018-12 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/180351545079578387/Measuring-Urban-Economic-Density http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31080 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8678 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Africa
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	URBANIZATION URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POPULATION DENSITY AGGLOMERATION SCALE ECONOMIES LAND USE
spellingShingle	URBANIZATION URBAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT POPULATION DENSITY AGGLOMERATION SCALE ECONOMIES LAND USE Henderson, J. Vernon Nigmatulina, Dzhamilya Kriticos, Sebastian Measuring Urban Economic Density
geographic_facet	Africa
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 8678
description	Agglomeration economies are at the heart of urban economics, driving the existence and extent of cities and are central to structural transformation and the urbanization process. This paper evaluates the use of different measures of economic density in assessing urban agglomeration effects, by examining how well they explain household income differences across cities and neighborhoods in six African countries. The paper examines simple scale and density measures and more nuanced ones that capture the extent of clustering within cities. The evidence suggests that more nuanced measures attempting to capture within-city differences in the extent of clustering do no better than a simple density measure in explaining income differences across cities, at least for the current degree of accuracy in measuring clustering. However, simple city scale measures, such as total population, are inferior to density measures and to some degree misleading. The analysis finds large household income premiums from being in bigger and particularly denser cities over rural areas in Africa, indicating that migration pull forces remain very strong in the structural transformation process. Moreover, the marginal effects of increases in urban density on household income are very large, with density elasticities of 0.6. In addition to strong city-level density effects, the analysis finds strong neighborhood effects. For household incomes, overall city density and density of the neighborhood matter.
format	Working Paper
author	Henderson, J. Vernon Nigmatulina, Dzhamilya Kriticos, Sebastian
author_facet	Henderson, J. Vernon Nigmatulina, Dzhamilya Kriticos, Sebastian
author_sort	Henderson, J. Vernon
title	Measuring Urban Economic Density
title_short	Measuring Urban Economic Density
title_full	Measuring Urban Economic Density
title_fullStr	Measuring Urban Economic Density
title_full_unstemmed	Measuring Urban Economic Density
title_sort	measuring urban economic density
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2018
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/180351545079578387/Measuring-Urban-Economic-Density http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31080
_version_	1764473564738617344

Measuring Urban Economic Density

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