IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jgeosy/v24y2022i3d10.1007_s10109-022-00374-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Urbanization and child growth failure in Sub-Saharan Africa: a geographical analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Yating Ru

    (Cornell University)

  • Beliyou Haile

    (International Food Policy Research Institute)

  • John I. Carruthers

    (Cornell University)

Abstract

This paper raises a fundamental question about Sub-Saharan Africa: has urbanization there been accompanied by improvements in personal wellbeing? It then proceeds to open an investigation focused on child health—in the form of child growth failure, including (i) stunting; (ii) wasting; and (iii) underweight—that addresses the question. The main contribution of the work is to reconcile an array of data, collected across different spatial scales and over different timeframes, in a manner that enables some preliminary insight into the relationships explored. Evidence derived from the analysis suggests that the wave of urbanization breaking across Sub-Saharan Africa is associated with improvements in wellbeing, a finding that is qualified by need for further research.

Suggested Citation

  • Yating Ru & Beliyou Haile & John I. Carruthers, 2022. "Urbanization and child growth failure in Sub-Saharan Africa: a geographical analysis," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 441-473, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jgeosy:v:24:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10109-022-00374-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s10109-022-00374-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10109-022-00374-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10109-022-00374-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

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

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J. Vernon Henderson & Matthew A. Turner, 2020. "Urbanization in the Developing World: Too Early or Too Slow?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 34(3), pages 150-173, Summer.
    2. Gharad Bryan & Edward Glaeser & Nick Tsivanidis, 2020. "Cities in the Developing World," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 12(1), pages 273-297, August.
    3. Nava Ashraf & Edward L. Glaeser & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto, 2016. "Infrastructure, Incentives, and Institutions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(5), pages 77-82, May.
    4. Edward L. Glaeser & Wentao Xiong, 2017. "Urban Productivity in the Developing World," NBER Working Papers 23279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Douglas Gollin & Remi Jedwab & Dietrich Vollrath, 2016. "Urbanization with and without industrialization," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 35-70, March.
    6. Gollin, Douglas & Lagakos, David & Kirchberger, Martina, 2017. "In Search of a Spatial Equilibrium in the Developing World," CEPR Discussion Papers 12114, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Robert J. Barro, 1991. "Economic Growth in a Cross Section of Countries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 106(2), pages 407-443.
    8. Edward L. Glaeser, 2020. "Urbanization and Its Discontents," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 191-218, April.
    9. Edward L. Glaeser, 2020. "Urbanization and its Discontents," NBER Working Papers 26839, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Gilles Duranton, 2015. "Growing through Cities in Developing Countries," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 30(1), pages 39-73.
    11. Edward L. Glaeser, 2007. "The Economics Approach to Cities," NBER Working Papers 13696, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Edward L. Glaeser & Wentao Xiong, 2017. "Urban productivity in the developing world," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(3), pages 373-404.
    13. Christian Düben & Melanie Krause, 2021. "Population, light, and the size distribution of cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 189-211, January.
    14. Alwyn Young, 2012. "The African Growth Miracle," NBER Working Papers 18490, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Edward L. Glaeser, 2014. "A World Of Cities: The Causes And Consequences Of Urbanization In Poorer Countries," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(5), pages 1154-1199, October.
    16. Robert J. Barro, 1998. "Determinants of Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Empirical Study," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262522543, April.
    17. Kelejian, Harry H & Prucha, Ingmar R, 1998. "A Generalized Spatial Two-Stage Least Squares Procedure for Estimating a Spatial Autoregressive Model with Autoregressive Disturbances," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 99-121, July.
    18. Birch, Colin P.D. & Oom, Sander P. & Beecham, Jonathan A., 2007. "Rectangular and hexagonal grids used for observation, experiment and simulation in ecology," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 206(3), pages 347-359.
    19. Alwyn Young, 2012. "The African Growth Miracle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(4), pages 696-739.
    20. Aaron Osgood-Zimmerman & Anoushka I. Millear & Rebecca W. Stubbs & Chloe Shields & Brandon V. Pickering & Lucas Earl & Nicholas Graetz & Damaris K. Kinyoki & Sarah E. Ray & Samir Bhatt & Annie J. Brow, 2018. "Mapping child growth failure in Africa between 2000 and 2015," Nature, Nature, vol. 555(7694), pages 41-47, March.
    21. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-183, May.
    22. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2015. "The path from cause to effect: mastering 'metrics," CentrePiece - The magazine for economic performance 442, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    23. Maxim L. Pinkovskiy, 2017. "Growth discontinuities at borders," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 145-192, June.
    24. Chauncy D. Harris & Edward L. Ullman, 1945. "The Nature of Cities," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 242(1), pages 7-17, November.
    25. Doll, Christopher N.H. & Muller, Jan-Peter & Morley, Jeremy G., 2006. "Mapping regional economic activity from night-time light satellite imagery," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 75-92, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maxim L. Pinkovskiy & Xavier X. Sala-i-Martin, 2014. "Lights, camera,...income! Estimating poverty using national accounts, survey means, and lights," Staff Reports 669, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    2. Bluhm, Richard & Krause, Melanie, 2022. "Top lights: Bright cities and their contribution to economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    3. Bluhm, Richard & Krause, Melanie, 2022. "Top lights: Bright cities and their contribution to economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    4. Jedwab, Remi & Vollrath, Dietrich, 2015. "Urbanization without growth in historical perspective," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 1-21.
    5. Maxim Pinkovskiy & Xavier Sala-i-Martin, 2015. "Lights, Camera,... Income! Estimating Poverty Using National Accounts, Survey Means and Lights," LIS Working papers 645, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    6. Vaidehi Tandel & Sahil Gandhi & Shaonlee Patranabis & Luís M. A. Bettencourt & Anup Malani, 2022. "Infrastructure, enforcement, and COVID‐19 in Mumbai slums: A first look," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 645-669, June.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser & Wentao Xiong, 2017. "Urban Productivity in the Developing World," NBER Working Papers 23279, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Hoang Ha Nguyen Thi & Alfons Weichenrieder, 2023. "Tax Haven Welfare and the Crackdown on Secrecy: Evidence from Night Light Emissions," CESifo Working Paper Series 10721, CESifo.
    9. Asongu, Simplice & Amavilah, Voxi & Andrés, Antonio R., 2014. "Economic Implications of Business Dynamics for KE-Associated Economic Growth and Inclusive Development in African Countries," MPRA Paper 63793, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. R Burger & S du Plessis, 2011. "Examining the Robustness of Competing Explanations of Slow Growth in African Countries," Studies in Economics and Econometrics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 21-47, December.
    11. Bloom, David E. & Canning, David & Kotschy, Rainer & Prettner, Klaus & Schünemann, Johannes, 2024. "Health and economic growth: Reconciling the micro and macro evidence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    12. Günther Rehme, 2011. "Endogenous Policy And Cross‐Country Growth Empirics," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(2), pages 262-296, May.
    13. Feng, Guohua & Gao, Jiti & Peng, Bin, 2022. "An integrated panel data approach to modelling economic growth," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 228(2), pages 379-397.
    14. Awasthi, Rajul & Nagarajan, Mohan & Deininger, Klaus W., 2021. "Property taxation in India: Issues impacting revenue performance and suggestions for reform," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    15. Petra Sauer & Martin Zagler, 2014. "(In)equality in Education and Economic Development," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(S2), pages 353-379, November.
    16. Fiorillo, Damiano, 2005. "Capitale Sociale Civile: una nota sui concetti e sulla evidenza empirica macro [Civil Social Capital: a note on the concepts and on the macro empirical evidence]," MPRA Paper 3822, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. EZZAHIDI, Elhadj & El Alaoui, Aicha, 2015. "Determinants of the recent growth surge in Africa: what changed since mid-1990s?," MPRA Paper 67792, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Historical Legacies and African Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 53-128, March.
    19. Michael Peneder & Karl Aiginger & Gernot Hutschenreiter & Markus Marterbauer, 2001. "Structural Change and Economic Growth," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 20668, March.
    20. Voxi Heinrich Amavilah & Antonio Rodríguez Andrés, 2024. "Knowledge Economy and the Economic Performance of African Countries: A Seemingly Unrelated and Recursive Approach," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(1), pages 110-143, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic growth; Development economics; Time geography; Nutrition; Sub-Saharan Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    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:kap:jgeosy:v:24:y:2022:i:3:d:10.1007_s10109-022-00374-w. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.