What is it about?

This paper shows how a new measure of accessibility to markets in different regions of a developing country can explain regional differences in economic growth and in inequality

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Why is it important?

There is a growing interest in explaining why populations located in some regions are poorer than others and how this impacts regional differences in economic growth. By showing that these regional differences in inequality and economic opportunity are influenced by access to markets for goods and services, such as market centers in large towns and cities, this paper explains why there are such disparities in the growth rates from region to region in developing countries

Perspectives

This paper began as a chapter in the dissertation of my PhD student and co-author, Jake Hochard. We felt that explaining regional differences in growth in developing countries was an under-researched area. One reason is that measures of market accessibility are not adequate to this task, and so Jake decided to develop a new measure. Together, we worked out how this new measure of market accessibility could be used to estimate differences in economic growth. We hope that this measure is useful to others interested in exploring this crucial relationship.

University Distinguished Professor Edward Barbier
Colorado State University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: Market Accessibility and Economic Growth: Insights from a New Dimension of Inequality, World Development, May 2017, Elsevier,
DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2017.04.018.
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