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Balanced City Growth and Zipf's Law

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  • Cordoba, Juan

    (U of Rochester)

Abstract

The evidence on city size distribution is remarkable. In many countries it obeys a Pareto distribution. Although several explanations have been proposed for the regularity, none of them is completely convincing, and the exact economic mechanism at work remains largely a puzzle. Current explanations seem to be inconsistent with scale economies, a central element in leading theories of cities.

Suggested Citation

  • Cordoba, Juan, 2001. "Balanced City Growth and Zipf's Law," Working Papers 2002-03, Rice University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecl:riceco:2002-03
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    File URL: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~econ/papers/2002papers/03Cordoba.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Matteo Richiardi, 2004. "Generalizing Gibrat: Reasonable Multiplicative Models of Firm Dynamics," Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, vol. 7(1), pages 1-2.
    2. Matteo Richiardi, 2003. "Generalizing Gibrat Reasonable Stochastic Multiplicative Models of Firm Dynamics with Entry and Exit," LABORatorio R. Revelli Working Papers Series 21, LABORatorio R. Revelli, Centre for Employment Studies.

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