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Gibrat’s law for cities, growth regressions and sample size

Author

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  • González-Val, Rafael
  • Lanaspa, Luis
  • Sanz-Gracia, Fernando

Abstract

This paper uses un-truncated city population data from six countries (the United States, Spain, Italy, France, England and Japan) to illustrate how parametric growth regressions can lead to biased results when testing for Gibrat’s law in city size distributions. The OLS results show non-monotonic behaviours depending on the sample size. Moreover, it is possible to find a critical sample size from which we reject Gibrat’s law.

Suggested Citation

  • González-Val, Rafael & Lanaspa, Luis & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando, 2013. "Gibrat’s law for cities, growth regressions and sample size," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 118(2), pages 367-369.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:118:y:2013:i:2:p:367-369
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2012.11.020
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. 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.
    2. González-Val, Rafael & Lanaspa, Luis & Sanz, Fernando, 2008. "New Evidence on Gibrat’s Law for Cities," MPRA Paper 10411, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    4. 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. Miguel Puente-Ajovín & Arturo Ramos, 2015. "On the parametric description of the French, German, Italian and Spanish city size distributions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(2), pages 489-509, March.
    2. Aurélie LALANNE & Martin ZUMPE, 2015. "Zipf’s law, Gibrat’s law and Cointegration," Cahiers du GREThA 2015-27, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée.
    3. Ramos, Arturo, 2015. "Log-growth distributions of US city sizes and non-Lévy processes," MPRA Paper 66561, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Lalanne, Aurélie & Zumpe, Martin, 2015. "Gibrat’s law, Zipf’s law and Cointegration," MPRA Paper 67992, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Vieira, Elizabeth S. & Lepori, Benedetto, 2016. "The growth process of higher education institutions and public policies," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 286-298.
    6. Beltràn Tapia, F. & Díez-Minguela, A. & Martínez-Galarraga, J., 2017. "The Shadow of Cities: Size, Location and the Spatial Distribution of Population in Spain," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1749, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gibrat’s law; City size distribution; Urban growth;

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • 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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