IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v37y1991i4p477-482.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Equilibrium urban unemployment in developing countries : Is migration the culprit?

Author

Listed:
  • Stark, Oded
  • Ranjan Gupta, Manash
  • Levhari, David

Abstract

This paper challenges the prediction of Todaro's model of rural-to-urban migration that an ‘increase in urban employment increases urban unemployed.’ It is shown that if the urban demand for labor is isoelastic or inelastic, creation of urban jobs causes urban unemployment to decline and urban-to-rural migration to take place. Moreover, urban job creation always reduces the rate of urban unemployment. The paper then remodels the urban job search process and derives the result that equilibrium urban unemployment would not vanish even if the urban-rural wage gap were eliminated.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Stark, Oded & Ranjan Gupta, Manash & Levhari, David, 1991. "Equilibrium urban unemployment in developing countries : Is migration the culprit?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 477-482, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:37:y:1991:i:4:p:477-482
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0165-1765(91)90090-8
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lee, Chul-In, 2008. "Migration and the wage and unemployment gaps between urban and non-urban sectors: A dynamic general equilibrium reinterpretation of the Harris-Todaro equilibrium," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 1416-1434, December.
    2. Zenou, Yves, 2005. "The Todaro Paradox Revisited," Working Paper Series 652, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    3. Zenou, Yves, 2008. "Job search and mobility in developing countries. Theory and policy implications," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 336-355, June.
    4. Lall, Somik V. & Selod, Harris & Shalizi, Zmarak, 2006. "Rural-urban migration in developing countries : a survey of theoretical predictions and empirical findings," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3915, The World Bank.
    5. Brueckner, Jan K. & Zenou, Yves, 1999. "Harris-Todaro models with a land market," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 317-339, May.
    6. Yves Zenou, 2011. "Rural–Urban Migration And Unemployment: Theory And Policy Implications," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(1), pages 65-82, February.
    7. Napolitano, Oreste & Bonasia, Mariangela, 2010. "Determinants of different internal migration trends: the Italian experience," MPRA Paper 21734, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Kul Bhatia, 2001. "Specific and mobile capital, migration and unemployment in a Harris-Todaro model," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 207-222.
    9. Silaghi, Monica Ioana & Ghatak, Subrata, 2011. "Why do not They Move from Rural to Urban Areas? Inter-Regional Migration in Romania," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 0(1), pages 143-158, March.
    10. Cho, Cheol-Joo, 2017. "The displacement and attraction effects in interurban migration: An application of the input-output scheme to the case of large cities in Korea," Economics Discussion Papers 2017-49, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    11. Masaharu Nagashima, 2018. "A condition for the reduction of urban unemployment in the Harris–Todaro model," Asia-Pacific Journal of Regional Science, Springer, vol. 2(1), pages 243-255, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:37:y:1991:i:4:p:477-482. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.