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New Evidence on Gibrat’s Law for Cities

Author

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

Abstract

The aim of this work is to test empirically the validity of Gibrat’s law on the growth of cities, using data on the complete distribution of cities (without size restrictions) from three countries (the US, Spain and Italy) for the entire 20th century. In order to achieve this, different techniques are used. First, panel data unit root tests tend to confirm the validity of Gibrat’s law in the upper-tail distribution. Secondly, when the entire distribution is considered using non-parametric methods, it is found that Gibrat’s law does not hold exactly in the long term (in general, size affects the variance of the growth process but not its mean). Moreover, the log-normal distribution works well as a description of city size distributions across the whole century when no truncation point is considered.

Suggested Citation

  • Rafael González-Val & Luis Lanaspa & Fernando Sanz-Gracia, 2014. "New Evidence on Gibrat’s Law for Cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(1), pages 93-115, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:51:y:2014:i:1:p:93-115
    DOI: 10.1177/0042098013484528
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    Cited by:

    1. Rafael González-Val & Javier Silvestre, 2020. "An annual estimate of spatially disaggregated populations: Spain, 1900–2011," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 65(2), pages 491-508, October.
    2. Ronan Lyons & Elisa Maria Tirindelli, 2022. "The Rise & Fall of Urban Concentration in Britain: Zipf, Gibrat and Gini across two centuries," Trinity Economics Papers tep0522, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    3. Rafael González-Val, 2021. "The Spanish spatial city size distribution," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 48(6), pages 1609-1631, July.
    4. Jan David Bakker & Christopher Parsons & Ferdinand Rauch, 2020. "Migration and Urbanization in Post-Apartheid South Africa," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank Group, vol. 34(2), pages 509-532.
    5. Arturo Ramos, 2017. "Are the log-growth rates of city sizes distributed normally? Empirical evidence for the USA," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 1109-1123, November.
    6. Jorge Díaz-Lanchas & Peter Mulder, 2021. "Does decentralization of governance promote urban diversity? Evidence from Spain," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(6), pages 1111-1128, June.
    7. Daniel Broxterman & Anthony Yezer, 2021. "Human capital divergence and the size distribution of cities: Is Gibrat’s law obsolete?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 58(12), pages 2549-2568, September.
    8. Aurélie, Lalanne & Martin, Zumpe, 2020. "From Gibrat’s law to Zipf’s law through cointegration?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Ramos, Arturo, 2015. "Are the log-growth rates of city sizes normally distributed? Empirical evidence for the US," MPRA Paper 65584, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Beltrán Tapia, Francisco J. & Díez-Minguela, Alfonso & Martinez-Galarraga, Julio, 2018. "Tracing the Evolution of Agglomeration Economies: Spain, 1860–1991," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 81-117, March.
    12. Massing, Till & Puente-Ajovín, Miguel & Ramos, Arturo, 2020. "On the parametric description of log-growth rates of cities’ sizes of four European countries and the USA," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 551(C).
    13. Aurélie Lalanne & Martin Zumpe, 2020. "Time-Series Based Empirical Assessment of Random Urban Growth: New Evidence from France," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 18(4), pages 911-926, December.
    14. Roman Römisch, 2015. "Estimating agglomeration in the EU and the Western Balkan regions," wiiw Balkan Observatory Working Papers 117, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    15. Sirio Cividino & Rares Halbac-Cotoara-Zamfir & Luca Salvati, 2020. "Revisiting the “City Life Cycle”: Global Urbanization and Implications for Regional Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-18, February.
    16. Aurélie Lalanne & Shana Sundstrom & Ahjond Garmestani, 2023. "Discontinuous structure of regional and subregional urban systems: Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France (1800–2015)," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 60(5), pages 869-884, April.
    17. Chengri Ding & Zhi Li, 2019. "Size and urban growth of Chinese cities during the era of transformation toward a market economy," Environment and Planning B, , vol. 46(1), pages 27-46, January.
    18. Dani Broitman & Eric Koomen, 2015. "Regional diversity in residential development: a decade of urban and peri-urban housing dynamics in The Netherlands," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 201-217, November.
    19. Arturo, Ramos, 2019. "Have the log-population processes stationary and independent increments? Empirical evidence for Italy, Spain and the USA along more than a century," MPRA Paper 93562, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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