Urbanization and the Wealth of Nations

The proportion of a country's population living in urban areas is highly correlated with its level of income. Urban areas offer economies of scale and richer market structures, and there is strong evidence that workers in urban areas are individually more productive, and earn more, than rural workers. However, rapid urbanization is also associated with crowding, environmental degradation, and other impediments to productivity. Overall, we find no evidence that the level of urbanization affects the rate of economic growth. Our findings weaken the rationale for either encouraging or discouraging urbanization as part of a strategy for economic growth.urbanization, economic growth, development.

Realizing the Demographic Dividend: Is Africa any different?

The demographic transition creates a window of opportunity during which economies may benefit from a temporary increase in the working age share of the population. While many economies have already enjoyed these benefits, they remain a promising opportunity for much of Sub-Saharan Africa. We show in this paper that Sub-Saharan Africa adheres to the same principles as the rest of the world with respect to the determinants of economic growth, including particularly the effects of demographic change. Assuming a policy and institutional context that is conducive to economic growth, most Sub-Saharan countries have the potential to reap a sizable demographic dividend.growth, Africa, Demographic Dividend, demography, sub-saharan.

Social Interactions and Fertility in Developing Countries

There is strong evidence that, in addition to individual and household characteristics, social interactions are important in determining fertility rates. Social interactions can lead to a multiplier effect where an individual’s ideas, and fertility choice, can affect the fertility decisions of others. We merge all available Demographic and Health Surveys to investigate the factors that influence both individual and average group fertility. We find that in the early phase of the fertility transition the impact of a woman’s education and experience of child death on her group’s average fertility are more than three times as large as their direct effect on her own fertility decision.demography, growth, age structure, population, economy.

Does Age Structure Forecast Economic Growth?

High ratios of working age to dependent population can yield a increases the rate of economic growth. We estimate the parameters model with a cross section of countries over the period 1960 to 1980 inclusion of age structure improves the model’s forecasts for the period that including age structure improves the forecast, although there instability between periods with an unexplained growth slowdown the model to generate growth forecasts for the period 2000–2020.Economic Growth, demography, forecast, evaluation, error decomposition

Improvement and Sensitivity Analysis of Thermal Thin-Ice Thickness Retrievals

Considering the sea ice decline in the Arctic during the last decades, polynyas are of high research interest since these features are core areas of new ice formation. The determination of ice formation requires accurate retrieval of polynya area and thin-ice thickness (TIT) distribution within the polynya. We use an established energy balance model to derive TITs with MODIS ice surface temperatures $(T_{s})$ and NCEP/DOE Reanalysis II in the Laptev Sea for two winter seasons. Improvements of the algorithm mainly concern the implementation of an iterative approach to calculate the atmospheric flux components taking the atmospheric stratification into account. Furthermore, a sensitivity study is performed to analyze the errors of the ice thickness. The results are the following: 1) 2-m air temperatures $(T_{a})$ and $T_{s}$ have the highest impact on the retrieved ice thickness; 2) an overestimation of $T_{a}$ yields smaller ice thickness errors as an underestimation of $T_{a}$; 3) NCEP $T_{a}$ shows often a warm bias; and 4) the mean absolute error for ice thicknesses up to 20 cm is $pm$4.7 cm. Based on these results, we conclude that, despite the shortcomings of the NCEP data (coarse spatial resolution and no polynyas), this data set is appropriate in combination with MODIS $T_{s}$ for the retrieval of TITs up to 20 cm in the Laptev Sea region. The TIT algorithm can be applied to other polynya regions and to past and future time periods. Our TIT product is a valuable data set for verification of other model and remote sensing ice thickness data

Fertility, Female Labor Force Participation, and the Demographic Dividend

We estimate the effect of fertility on female labor force participation in a cross-country panel data set using abortion legislation as an instrument for fertility. We find a large negative effect of the fertility rate on female labor force participation. The direct effect is concentrated among those aged 20–39, but we find that cohort participation is persistent over time giving an effect among older women. We present a simulation model of the effect of fertility reduction on income per capita, taking into account these changes in female labor force participation as well as population numbers and age structure.

Does Age Structure Forecast Economic Growth?

Increases in the proportion of the working age population can yield a "demographic dividend" that enhances the rate of economic growth. We estimate the parameters of an economic growth model with a cross section of countries over the period 1960 to 1980 and investigate whether the inclusion of age structure improves the model's forecasts for the period 1980 to 2000. We find that including age structure improves the forecast, although there is evidence of parameter instability between periods with an unexplained growth slowdown in the second period. We use the model to generate growth forecasts for the period 2000 to 2020.

Demographic Change, Institutional Settings, and Labor Supply

This paper analyzes cross-country panel data to examine the effect of key institutional features of social security systems on male labor supply. Our findings indicate that the labor supply of older males covaries negatively with replacement rates and system coverage, with the replacement rate effects being stronger for pay-as-you-go systems than for fully funded systems. The results also reveal a surprisingly small and often negative response of the labor supply of older males to improvements in life expectancy.Global health, labor, Aging, Economics, Demography.

Evaluating the Effects of Large Scale Health Interventions in Developing Countries: The Zambian Malaria Initiative

Since 2003, Zambia has been engaged in a large-scale, centrally coordinated national anti- Malaria campaign which has become a model in sub-Saharan Africa. This paper aims at quantifying the individual and macro level benefits of this campaign, which involved mass distribution of insecticide treated mosquito nets, intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women, indoor residual spraying, rapid diagnostic tests, and artemisinin-based combination therapy. We discuss the timing and regional coverage of the program, and critically review the available health and program rollout data. To estimate the health benefits associated with the program rollout, we use both population based morbidity measures from the Demographic and Health Surveys and health facility based mortality data as reported in the national Health Management Information System. While we find rather robust correlations between the rollout of bed nets and subsequent improvements in our health measures, the link between regional spraying and individual level health appears rather weak in the data.

Urban Settlement: Data, Measures, and Trends

This paper examines data on urbanization. We review the most commonly used data sources and highlight the difficulties inherent in defining and measuring the size of urban versus rural populations. We show that differences in the measurement of urban populations across countries and over time are significant and discuss the methods used for these measurements, as well as for projecting urbanization. We also analyze recent trends and patterns in urbanization. Finally, we describe the principal channels of urbanization and examine their relative contributions to the global urbanization process.urbanization, urbanization data