Does Urbanization Help Poverty Reduction in Rural Areas? Evidence from a Developing Country

Urbanization and poverty have a two-way relationship. Using fixed-effects regression and panel data from household surveys, we estimate the effect of urbanization on income and consumption expenditure of rural households in Vietnam. Then we propose a simple estimate method to estimate the effect of urbanization on rural poverty. It is found that a one percent increase in urbanization leads to a 0.54 percent increase in per capita income and a 0.39 percent increase in per capita expenditure of rural households. In addition, a one percentage point increase in urbanization helps rural households decrease the poverty rate by 0.17 percentage point. However, we find an effect of urbanization on consumption of unhealthy goods: urbanization increases household expenditures on tobacco and wine.