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Cities and Countries

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  • Rose, Andrew

Abstract

If one ranks cities by population, the rank of a city is inversely related to its size, a well-documented phenomenon known as Zipf's Law. Further, the growth rate of a city's population is uncorrelated with its size, another well-known characteristic known as Gibrat's Law. In this paper, I show that both characteristics are true of countries as well as cities; the size distributions of cities and countries are similar. But theories that explain the size-distribution of cities do not obviously apply in explaining the size-distribution of countries. The similarity of city- and country-size distributions is an interesting riddle.

Suggested Citation

  • Rose, Andrew, 2005. "Cities and Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 5235, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5235
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg & Mark L. J. Wright, 2007. "Urban Structure and Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 597-624.
    2. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    3. Rosen, Kenneth T. & Resnick, Mitchel, 1980. "The size distribution of cities: An examination of the Pareto law and primacy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 165-186, September.
    4. Nitsch, Volker, 2005. "Zipf zipped," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 86-100, January.
    5. Krugman, Paul, 1996. "Confronting the Mystery of Urban Hierarchy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 399-418, December.
    6. Gabaix, Xavier & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2004. "The evolution of city size distributions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 53, pages 2341-2378, Elsevier.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Boris Portnov & Ben Reiser & Moshe Schwartz, 2012. "Does Gibrat’s law for cities hold when location counts?," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 48(1), pages 151-178, February.
    2. Çağlar Özden & Christopher Parsons, 2016. "On the Economic Geography of International Migration," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(4), pages 478-495, April.
    3. Anna Bogomolnaia & Michel Le Breton & Alexei Savvateev & Shlomo Weber, 2008. "Heterogeneity Gap in Stable Jurisdiction Structures," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 10(3), pages 455-473, June.
    4. Boris A. Portnov, 2011. "The Change of Support Problem (COSP) and its Implications for Urban Analysis: Some Evidence from a Study of the European Urban System," ERSA conference papers ersa10p106, European Regional Science Association.
    5. Mariusz A. Sumlinski, 2008. "International Reserves—Too Much of a Zipf’s Thing," IMF Working Papers 2008/011, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Jesús Clemente & Rafael González-Val & Irene Olloqui, 2011. "Zipf’s and Gibrat’s laws for migrations," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 47(1), pages 235-248, August.
    7. González-Val, Rafael, 2007. "The evolution of the US urban structure from a long-run perspective (1900-2000)," MPRA Paper 9732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Rafael González-Val & Marcos Sanso-Navarro, 2010. "Gibrat’s law for countries," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 23(4), pages 1371-1389, September.
    9. Harry P. Bowen & Haris Munandar & Jean-Marie Viaene, 2005. "Zipf's Law for Integrated Economies," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-048/2, Tinbergen Institute, revised 06 Feb 2007.
    10. Boris A. PORTNOV, 2012. "Does The Choice Of Geographic Units Matter For The Validation Of Gibrat'S Law?," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 36, pages 79-106.
    11. Boris Portnov, 2011. "Does Zipf’s law hold for primate cities? Some evidence from a discriminant analysis of world countries," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 31(2), pages 113-129, October.
    12. Bastos, Felipe de Sousa & Ferreira, Roberto Tatiwa & Arruda, Elano Ferreira, 2018. "Speed of Reversion of Deviations of the Purchasing Power Parity for Brazilian Cities," Revista Brasileira de Economia - RBE, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil), vol. 72(1), February.
    13. Harry P. Bowen & Haris Munandar & Jean-Marie Viaene, 2006. "Evidence and Implications of Zipf’s Law for Integrated Economies," CESifo Working Paper Series 1743, CESifo.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distribution; Zipf; Gibrat; Empirical; Mean; Growth; Rank; Size; Logarithm;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F00 - International Economics - - General - - - General
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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