Urban-to-Rural Population Growth Linkages: Evidence from OECD from OECD TL3 Regions

The objective of this paper is to understand, from an international comparative perspective,how population growth in rural regions is affected by the relationship with their nearby urbancenters. By means of a cross-sectional analysis on OECD small regions (Territorial Level 3), the paperdistinguishes spread effects—positive spillovers arising from urban growth—from the net effect of distanceto nonrural places. The results show that spread effects outweigh backwash effects, so that ruralregions benefit from growth in urban places. A rural region’s distance from urban and intermediateregions has a negative effect on its population growth rate. Nevertheless, both the strength of this effectand the growth spillovers decline with distance, and this occurs relatively faster in Europe. The resultsfurther suggest that proximity to large urban areas has a higher positive influence than proximity tointermediate areas, but only outside Europe.