The Welfare Economics of Rural‐To‐Urban Migration: The Harris‐Todaro Model Revisited
扩展哈里斯-托达罗模型，纳入城市集聚效应、工资灵活性和政府预算约束，发现无补贴时迁移过度，最优迁移水平需权衡补贴收益与税收成本。
In this paper we extend the Harris‐Todaro model of rural‐to‐urban migration to include urban agglomeration effects, some urban real wage flexibility, and a government budget constraint. Without employment subsidies laissez‐faire migration is excessive unless real wage flexibility and agglomeration effects are high. Laissez‐faire migration is too low compared with the first‐best outcome supported by a subsidy, if its financing involves no costs. Simulations suggest that such a program would imply a substantial increase in taxation. If, as seems likely, an increase of this magnitude involves economic costs then the optimal outcome falls well short of first‐best.