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New Evidence on Gibrat’s Law for Cities

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Author Info
González-Val, Rafael
Lanaspa, Luis
Sanz, Fernando

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Abstract

The aim of this work is to test empirically the validity of Gibrat’s Law in the growth of cities, using data for all the twentieth century of the complete distribution of cities (without any size restrictions) in three countries: the US, Spain and Italy. On considering the distribution of cities, we find a tendency to divergence. However, this fact does not impede, whether from an empirical or a theoretical point of view, that city size distribution can be adequately approximated with a lognormal distribution. Also, the conclusions which can be obtained as to fulfilment or not of Gibrat’s Law depend, first, on the sample size and, second, on the size of the cities being considered (large or small), which means that the results of any study which does not use all the distribution will be relative.

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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 10411.

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Date of creation: 05 Sep 2008
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Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:10411

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Related research
Keywords: Gibrat’s Law; city size distribution; urban growth;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods
R00 - Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics - - General - - - General

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Paul Cheshire & Stefano Magrini, 2005. "Population Growth in European Cities - Weather Matters, but only Nationally," ERSA conference papers ersa05p12, European Regional Science Association. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. 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. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Duncan Black & Vernon Henderson, 2003. "Urban evolution in the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 343-372, October.
  4. Eaton, Jonathan & Eckstein, Zvi, 1997. "Cities and growth: Theory and evidence from France and Japan," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(4-5), pages 443-474, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. George Petrakos & Prodromos Mardakis & Helen Caraveli, 2000. "Recent developments in the Greek system of urban centres," Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design, Pion Ltd, London, vol. 27(2), pages 169-181, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Marc Schramm, 2004. "The strategic bombing of German cities during World War II and its impact on city growth," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 201-218, April.
  7. Anderson, Gordon & Ge, Ying, 2005. "The size distribution of Chinese cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 756-776, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Glaeser, Edward L. & Shapiro, Jesse M., 2002. "Cities and Warfare: The Impact of Terrorism on Urban Form," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 205-224, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. John Sutton, 1997. "Gibrat's Legacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 40-59, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Gilles Duranton, 2007. "Urban Evolutions: The Fast, the Slow, and the Still," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 197-221, March. [Downloadable!]
  11. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf'S Law For Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Michaels, Guy & Rauch, Ferdinand & Redding, Stephen J, 2008. "Urbanization and Structural Transformation," CEPR Discussion Papers 7016, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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