IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000102/011539.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ley de Zipf y de Gibrat para Colombia y sus regiones: 1835-2005

Author

Listed:
  • Gerson Javier Pérez
  • Adolfo Meisel Roca

Abstract

En este documento se estudia la dinámica de la jerarquía urbana a nivel nacional y regional en Colombia utilizando evidencia empírica basada en la información censal entre 1835 y 2005. Este trabajo se enfoca en tres asuntos: 1. el análisis de la distribución del tamano poblacional a través de las regularidades empíricas de Zipf y de Gibrat; 2. el cambio temporal en el modelo de crecimiento poblacional a nivel nacional y regional; y 3. la validación empírica del planteamiento teórico de Gabaix (1999b) sobre la coincidencia de la dinámica poblacional en un país y sus regiones. Haciendo uso de la relación rango-tamano ajustadas (Gabaix-Ibragimov, 2011) y de técnicas no-paramétricas, se encuentra coincidencia a partir de 1964, a nivel nacional y por regiones, en el cumplimiento de la Ley de Zipf y parcialmente de la Ley de Gibrat. Estos resultados muestran un cambio en el modelo de crecimiento poblacional a partir de la segunda mitad del siglo XX. A través del uso de matrices de transición se encontró que, mientras que las ciudades grandes y pequenas tienen una alta probabilidad de seguir con el mismo tamano en el futuro, las ciudades medias tienen una mayor probabilidad de reducir su tamano relativo.******ABSTRACT: By using empirical evidence based on census data for the period 1835–2005, this paper studies the dynamic pattern of urban hierarchies at both national and regional level in Colombia. In particular, this document focuses on three issues: 1. the analysis of city size distribution by means of Zipf’s law and Gibrat’s law; 2. the shifts in the population growth models at national and regional level; 3. the empirical validation of the point made by Gabaix (1999b) on the coincidence between national and regional population patterns. Using the adjusted rank-size relationship (Gabaix-Ibragimov, 2011) and non-parametric techniques, we find that city size distributions follow a Zipfian power low and that Gibrat’s law holds at national level and partially at the regional level from 1964. These results are consistent with shifts in the population growth patterns from the second half of the twentieth century at national and regional level. By using transition probability matrices it was found that, whereas small and big cities are more likely to remain so in the future, medium-sized cities have a higher probability of facing downward mobility.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerson Javier Pérez & Adolfo Meisel Roca, 2013. "Ley de Zipf y de Gibrat para Colombia y sus regiones: 1835-2005," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 11539, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000102:011539
    DOI: 10.32468/dtseru.192
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.32468/dtseru.192
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.32468/dtseru.192?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    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. Kristian Giesen & Jens Südekum, 2011. "Zipf's law for cities in the regions and the country," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 667-686, July.
    3. L. Benguigui & E. Blumenfeld-Lieberthal, 2011. "The end of a paradigm: is Zipf’s law universal?," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 87-100, March.
    4. Harris Dobkins, Linda & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2001. "Spatial interactions among U.S. cities: 1900-1990," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(6), pages 701-731, November.
    5. Hernán D. Rozenfeld & Diego Rybski & Xavier Gabaix & Hernán A. Makse, 2011. "The Area and Population of Cities: New Insights from a Different Perspective on Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2205-2225, August.
    6. Xavier Gabaix & Rustam Ibragimov, 2011. "Rank - 1 / 2: A Simple Way to Improve the OLS Estimation of Tail Exponents," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 24-39, January.
    7. Duranton, Gilles, 2006. "Some foundations for Zipf's law: Product proliferation and local spillovers," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 542-563, July.
    8. Rosen, Kenneth T. & Resnick, Mitchel, 1980. "The size distribution of cities: An examination of the Pareto law and primacy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 165-186, September.
    9. Soo, Kwok Tong, 2005. "Zipf's Law for cities: a cross-country investigation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 239-263, May.
    10. Gloria Lucía Bernal Nisperuza & Carlos Enrique Nieto Trujillo, 2006. "Evolucion del coeficiente de ZIPF para Colombia en el siglo XX," Documentos de Economía 3946, Universidad Javeriana - Bogotá.
    11. Shunfeng Song & Kevin Honglin Zhang, 2002. "Urbanisation and City Size Distribution in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(12), pages 2317-2327, November.
    12. Duncan Black & Vernon Henderson, 2003. "Urban evolution in the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 343-372, October.
    13. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    14. Gabaix, Xavier & Ibragimov, Rustam, 2011. "Rank − 1 / 2: A Simple Way to Improve the OLS Estimation of Tail Exponents," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(1), pages 24-39.
    15. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
    16. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law and the Growth of Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 129-132, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. 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.
    2. Leonardo Bonilla–Mejía & Luis Armando Galvis?Aponte, 2017. "Centro de Estudios Económicos Regionales (CEER): veinte anos de investigación sobre economía regional," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 15532, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.
    3. Gerson Javier Pérez-Valbuena & Jaime Bonet-Morón, 2018. "Municipal Fiscal Health in Colombian Main Cities," Documentos de Trabajo Sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 17016, Banco de la República, Economía Regional.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    2. Arshad, Sidra & Hu, Shougeng & Ashraf, Badar Nadeem, 2019. "Zipf’s law, the coherence of the urban system and city size distribution: Evidence from Pakistan," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 513(C), pages 87-103.
    3. 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.
    4. Valente J. Matlaba & Mark J. Holmes & Philip McCann & Jacques Poot, 2013. "A Century Of The Evolution Of The Urban System In Brazil," Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 129-151, November.
    5. Rafael GONZÀLEZ-VAL, 2012. "Zipf’S Law: Main Issues In Empirical Work," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 36, pages 147-164.
    6. repec:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa14p34 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Christian Düben & Melanie Krause, 2021. "Population, light, and the size distribution of cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 189-211, January.
    8. Hernán D. Rozenfeld & Diego Rybski & Xavier Gabaix & Hernán A. Makse, 2011. "The Area and Population of Cities: New Insights from a Different Perspective on Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2205-2225, August.
    9. Marco Modica, 2014. "Does the EU have homogeneous urban structure area? The role of agglomeration and the impact of shocks on urban structure," ERSA conference papers ersa14p229, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Rafael González-Val, 2019. "US city-size distribution and space," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 283-300, July.
    11. Wen-Tai Hsu & Tomoya Mori & Tony E. Smith, 2014. "Spatial Patterns and Size Distributions of Cities," KIER Working Papers 882, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    12. Rafael González‐Val, 2019. "Historical urban growth in Europe (1300–1800)," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(2), pages 1115-1136, April.
    13. M. Modica & A. Reggiani & P. Nijkamp, 2015. "A Comparative Analysis of Gibrat s and Zipf s Law on Urban Population," Working Papers wp1008, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    14. Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando & González-Val, Rafael, 2013. "A new framework for the US city size distribution: Empirical evidence and theory," MPRA Paper 52190, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Tomoya Mori & Tony E. Smith, 2009. "A Reconsideration of the NAS Rule from an Industrial Agglomeration Perspective," KIER Working Papers 669, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    16. Bluhm, Richard & Krause, Melanie, 2022. "Top lights: Bright cities and their contribution to economic development," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    17. Lee, Sanghoon & Li, Qiang, 2013. "Uneven landscapes and city size distributions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 19-29.
    18. Ioannides, Yannis M. & Zhang, Junfu, 2017. "Walled cities in late imperial China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 71-88.
    19. Rolf Bergs, 2018. "The detection of natural cities in the Netherlands—Nocturnal satellite imagery and Zipf’s law [Die Abgrenzung natürlicher Städte in den Niederlanden: Nachtsatellitenbilder und das Zipf-Gesetz]," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 38(2), pages 111-140, October.
    20. repec:wyi:journl:002175 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Halvarsson, Daniel, 2013. "Industry Differences in the Firm Size Distribution," Ratio Working Papers 214, The Ratio Institute.
    22. Bosker, Maarten & Brakman, Steven & Garretsen, Harry & Schramm, Marc, 2008. "A century of shocks: The evolution of the German city size distribution 1925-1999," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 330-347, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Distribución del tamaño poblacional; Ley de Zipf; Ley de Gibrat;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • R10 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:col:000102:011539. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Banco De La República - Economía Regional (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cbcgvco.html .

    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.