Migration, Unemployment & Development: A Two-Sector Analysis
Migration, Unemployment & Development: A Two-Sector Analysis
复制标题
DOI：
--
复制
发表时间：
1970-03
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
John R. Harris;M. Todaro
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
John R. Harris;M. Todaro
在整体经济中没有绝对劳动力冗余的情况下，传统经济模型很难将理性行为解释与不断上升的城市失业率水平协调起来。本文建立了一个城乡人口迁移的两部门模型，该模型承认存在一个政治决定的城市最低工资水平，其水平远高于农业收入。该模型的显著特征是，人口迁移是根据城乡预期收入差异而进行的，而城市就业率对这种迁移起着平衡作用。整体模型被用来证明：1)考虑到政治上决定的高最低工资，尽管大量城市失业，但农村-城市移民的持续存在代表了个体移民的经济理性选择；2)经济学家通过使用“影子价格”来创造城市就业机会的标准政策建议，通过工资补贴或直接政府雇佣的方式实施，可能导致恶化城市失业问题。在假设经济理论所建议的完全工资弹性在政治上是不可实现的情况下，评估了与各种保留农村人口计划相关的替代政策对福利的影响；结论是，在缺乏工资灵活性的情况下，最优政策将包括部分工资补贴或政府直接就业和限制自由移民的措施。基本模型是包含失业的两部门内部贸易模型这两个部门分别是专门生产制成品的永久性城市部门和使用所有可用劳动力生产农产品或将部分劳动力出口到城市部门的农村部门。人们假设，典型的移徙者与农村部门保持着联系，但这一假设对于论证来说是不必要的。
This study examines why rural-urban labor migration persists and is even increasing in many developing nations despite the existence of positive marginal products in agriculture and significant levels of urban unemployment. Conventional economic models have difficulty reconciling rational behavioral explanations with growing levels of urban unemployment in the absence of absolute labor redundancy in the overall economy. This paper formulates a 2-sector model of rural-urban migration which recognizes the existence of a politically determined minimum urban wage at levels substantially higher than agricultural earnings. The distinguishing feature of the model is that migration proceeds in response to urban-rural differences in expected earnings with the urban employment rate acting as an equilibrating force on such migration. The overall model is used to demonstrate 1) that given the politically determined high minimum wage the continued existence of rural-urban migration in spite of substantial urban unemployment represents an economically rational choice on the part of the individual migrants and 2) that economists standard policy recommendation of generating urban employment opportunities through the use of "shadow prices" implemented by means of wage subsidies or direct government hiring may lead to a worsening of the urban unemployment problem. Welfare implications of alternative policies associated with various programs to retain rural population are assessed under the assumption that the full wage flexibility suggested by economic theory is politically unfeasible; it is concluded that in the absence of wage flexibility an optimal policy would include both partial wage subsidies or direct government employment and measures to restrict free migration. The basic model is a 2-sector internal trade model with unemployment the 2 sectors being the permanent urban sector which specializes in production of manufactured goods and the rural which either uses all available labor to produce agricultural goods or exports part of the labor to the urban sector. It is assumed that the typical migrant retains his ties to the rural sector but the assumption is not necessary for the argument.