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Spurious Zipf's Law

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Author Info
Juan-Carlos Candeal
Antonio Montañés ()
Irene Olloqui ()

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Abstract

This paper shows that the acceptance of the Zipf's Law may sometimes be the result of a spurious artifact. By way of some Monte Carlo exercises we provide evidence in favour of the fact that the Zipf's law can be spuriously accepted when the variable being studied is generated by a random distribution. This result is explained by taking account the, so-called, spurious detrending problem.

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Paper provided by European Regional Science Association in its series ERSA conference papers with number ersa03p67.

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Date of creation: Aug 2003
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Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa03p67

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  1. Durlauf, Steven N & Phillips, Peter C B, 1988. "Trends versus Random Walks in Time Series Analysis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1333-54, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  2. 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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  3. Y Ioannides & Henry Overman, 2000. "Zipfs Law for Cities: An Empirical Examination," CEP Discussion Papers dp0484, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Ng, S. & Perron, P., 1994. "Unit Root Tests ARMA Models with Data Dependent Methods for the Selection of the Truncation Lag," Cahiers de recherche 9423, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
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  5. Engle, Robert F & Granger, Clive W J, 1987. "Co-integration and Error Correction: Representation, Estimation, and Testing," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 251-76, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Alperovich, Gershon, 1989. "The distribution of city size: A sensitivity analysis," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 93-102, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Peter C.B. Phillips, 1985. "Understanding Spurious Regressions in Econometrics," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 757, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law and the Growth of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 129-132, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Granger, C. W. J. & Newbold, P., 1974. "Spurious regressions in econometrics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 111-120, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. 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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