Determinants of urban concentration in African countries

Abstract

The knowledge of the potential drivers of urban concentration is of prime importance for policy-makers. This paper examines links between some structural variables and some measures of urban concentration in African countries. Cross-section regressions are used to single out determinants of urban concentration. There are three results worth highlighting. First, huge differences do exist between African countries in terms of the rate of urbanization of their population and the degree of concentration of their urban systems. Second, the countries having the most primal urban systems are the poorest countries according to their per capita GDP. Consequently, the higher the urban population is and the lower the degree of development of a country we have, the higher will be, on average, the degree of its urban concentration. Third, the availability of electricity in rural areas is associated negatively with urban concentration however measured (Prim1, Prim2, HHI, and Gini index). This is a rather important result because the availability of electricity in rural areas is informative of the abundance of infrastructures in the country and, henceforth, its even distribution among urban cities and then less concentrated rural migrants' flows.

Keywords

• urban concentration
• development
• primacy
• gini index
• africa