Quality-adjusted Population Density

Tuesday, April 13, 2021
12:30pm – 2:00pm
via Zoom

About the Presenter:

J. Vernon Henderson joined the London School of Economics in September 2013 as School Professor of Economic Geography, having previously been Eastman Professor of Political Economy at Brown University, USA.

His research focuses on urbanization in developing countries, looking both within and across cities and regions. His current research looks at topics such as the evolution of the urban system in sub-Saharan Africa; factor market distortions, city size and welfare in China; spatial equilibrium models; the dynamics of investment in the built environment in cities, how colonial legacy affects sprawl and the spatial layout of cities; the link between ethno-linguistic diversity and urban concentration worldwide; and the role of geography and history in economic development.

His recent work is published in journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, American Economic Review, Review of Economic Studies, Science and Journal of Development Economics. He has been a co-editor of the Journal of Urban Economics and the Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, and serves on a number of editorial boards. He is a founder and past President of the Urban Economics Association.

Over the years, he has worked with governments in Asia and Africa directly or indirectly through institutions such as the World Bank and DFIDic on formulating urban policies.

Paper: Quality-adjusted Population Density, joint with Adam Storeygard (Tufts) and David Weil (Brown)

Abstract: Quality-adjusted population density (QAPD) is population divided by l and area that has been adjusted for geographic characteristics. We derive weights on these geographic characteristics from a global regression of population density at the quarter-degree level with country fixed effects. We show, first, that while income per capita is uncorrelated with conventionally measured population density across countries, there is a strong negative correlation between income per capita and Q APD; second, that the magnitude of this relationship exceeds the plausible structural effect of density on income, suggesting a negative correlation between QAPD and productivity or factor accumulation; and third, that higher Q APD in poor countries is primarily due to population growth since 1820. We argue that these facts are best understood as results of the differential timings of economic takeoff and demographic transition across countries, and particularly the rapid transfer of health technologies from early to late developers.