IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/applec/v57y2025i21p2665-2678.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing the Zipf’s law under heterogeneous urban-rural hierarchies with spatial quantile regressions

Author

Listed:
  • Clio Ciaschini
  • Rosanna Salvia
  • Margherita Carlucci
  • Luca Salvati

Abstract

Despite the widespread recognition of Zipf’s law in urban economics, empirical evidence reveals deviations from the strict adherence to its postulated parameters. In our contribution to this ongoing debate, we applied Zipf’s law to population density of a metropolitan hierarchy in Greece (1033 municipalities) over a substantial timeframe (1961–2021). To overcome the specific limitations of global Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) models, cross-section spatial quantile regressions had been performed. The outcomes unveiled heterogeneous rank-size relationships for urban municipalities corresponding with the first and the second quartile of density distribution. These relationships became more homogeneous in rural municipalities (third and fourth quartiles). Consistent with the predictions of Zipf’s law, slope coefficients exhibited a notable increase over time, approaching 1 for mixed urban-rural municipalities. Conversely, they remained slightly below 1 for strictly urban municipalities and slightly above 1 for strictly rural ones. Space was found to play a significant role during late urbanization (1980s-1990s), suggesting an impact of agglomeration economies on metropolitan hierarchy. Suburbanization exerted a reverse effect resulting in more heterogeneous hierarchies since the late-1990s. Our findings underscore the intricate nexus between deviations from Zipfian patterns in urban-rural population distribution and the spatially explicit dynamics of city life cycles.

Suggested Citation

  • Clio Ciaschini & Rosanna Salvia & Margherita Carlucci & Luca Salvati, 2025. "Testing the Zipf’s law under heterogeneous urban-rural hierarchies with spatial quantile regressions," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 57(21), pages 2665-2678, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:21:p:2665-2678
    DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2024.2331027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00036846.2024.2331027
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00036846.2024.2331027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:21:p:2665-2678. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.