@article{94d4868c37e84b0783cd631f36c8bafb,
title = "Urbanization and structural transformation",
abstract = "We examine urbanization using new data that allow us to track the evolution of population in rural and urban areas in the United States from 1880 to 2000. We find a positive correlation between initial population density and subsequent population growth for intermediate densities, which increases the dispersion of the population density distribution over time. We use theory and empirical evidence to show this pattern of population growth is the result of differences in agriculture's initial share of employment across population densities, combined with structural transformation that shifts employment away from agriculture.",
author = "Guy Michaels and Ferdinand Rauch and Redding, {Stephen J.}",
note = "Funding Information: ∗Financial support for this paper was provided by the Globalization Programme of the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), which is partly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). We thank Yu-Hsiang Lei, Ralph Ossa, Tomasz Swiecki, and Bart Thia for excellent research assistance. We are also grateful to the editor, four anonymous referees, Robin Burgess, Francesco Caselli, Tim Guinnane, Tom Holmes, Alan Manning, Rachel Ngai, Steve Pischke, Chris Pissarides, RichardRogerson, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, andseminar participants at AEA, CEPR, Helsinki, International Growth Center (IGC), LSE, Oxford, Tel Aviv University, Tinbergen Institute, University of Minnesota, University of Missouri, and Zurich for helpful comments. Thanks also to Gilles Duranton and Matt Turner for sharing the GIS roads and railroads data. Responsibility for any opinions, results, and errors lies with the authors alone.",
year = "2012",
month = may,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1093/qje/qjs003",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "127",
pages = "535--586",
journal = "Quarterly Journal of Economics",
issn = "0033-5533",
publisher = "Oxford University Press",
number = "2",
}