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On the parametric description of the French, German, Italian and Spanish city size distributions

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Listed author(s):
  • Puente-Ajovin, Miguel
  • Ramos, Arturo

Abstract

We study the parametric description of the city size distribution of four European countries: France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The parametric models used are the lognormal, the double Pareto lognormal, the normal-Box-Cox (defined in this paper) and the threshold double Pareto Singh--Maddala (introduced in a cited recent paper when studying US city size). The results are quite regular. The preferred model is always the threshold double Pareto Singh--Maddala in the four countries. However, the dPln is not rejected always for the case of France, and in the case of Italy the dPln is the runner-up distribution. These results complement those obtained in a cited recent paper which study the US places' city size distribution.

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File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/55285/1/MPRA_paper_55285.pdf
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 55285.

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Date of creation: 12 Apr 2014
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:55285
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Keywords: European city size distributions; population thresholds; lower and upper tails; new statistical distribution;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C13 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Estimation: General
  • C16 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Econometric and Statistical Methods; Specific Distributions
  • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General

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  1. Giesen, Kristian & Suedekum, Jens, 2014. "City age and city size," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 193-208.
  2. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
  3. Kristian GIESEN & Jens SÜDEKUM, 2012. "The French Overall City Size Distribution," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 36, pages 107-126.
  4. 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.
  5. Gilles Duranton, 2007. "Urban Evolutions: The Fast, the Slow, and the Still," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 197-221, March.
  6. 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.
  7. Reed, William J., 2001. "The Pareto, Zipf and other power laws," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 15-19, December.
  8. Ioannides, Yannis M. & Overman, Henry G., 2003. "Zipf's law for cities: an empirical examination," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 127-137, March.
  9. Ron Shachar & Barry Nalebuff, 2004. "Verifying the Solution from a Nonlinear Solver: A Case Study: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 382-390, March.
  10. Ioannides, Yannis & Skouras, Spyros, 2013. "US city size distribution: Robustly Pareto, but only in the tail," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 18-29.
  11. Duncan Black & Vernon Henderson, 2003. "Urban evolution in the USA," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(4), pages 343-372, October.
  12. Reed, William J., 2003. "The Pareto law of incomes—an explanation and an extension," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 319(C), pages 469-486.
  13. Giesen, Kristian & Zimmermann, Arndt & Suedekum, Jens, 2010. "The size distribution across all cities - Double Pareto lognormal strikes," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 129-137, September.
  14. William J. Reed, 2002. "On the Rank-Size Distribution for Human Settlements," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 1-17.
  15. Rafael González-Val & Arturo Ramos & Fernando Sanz-Gracia & María Vera-Cabello, 2015. "Size distributions for all cities: Which one is best?," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(1), pages 177-196, 03.
  16. Rafael González-Val & Arturo Ramos & Fernando Sanz-Gracia, 2013. "The accuracy of graphs to describe size distributions," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(17), pages 1580-1585, November.
  17. Singh, S K & Maddala, G S, 1976. "A Function for Size Distribution of Incomes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(5), pages 963-970, September.
  18. B. D. McCullough & H. D. Vinod, 2003. "Verifying the Solution from a Nonlinear Solver: A Case Study," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 873-892, June.
  19. Anderson, Gordon & Ge, Ying, 2005. "The size distribution of Chinese cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(6), pages 756-776, November.
  20. David M. Drukker & Vince Wiggins, 2004. "Verifying the Solution from a Nonlinear Solver: A Case Study: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 397-399, March.
  21. 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.
  22. B. D. McCullough & H. D. Vinod, 2004. "Verifying the Solution from a Nonlinear Solver: A Case Study: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 400-406, March.
  23. 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.
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Cited by:

  1. Luckstead, Jeff & Devadoss, Stephen, 2017. "Pareto tails and lognormal body of US cities size distribution," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 465(C), pages 573-578.
  2. Puente-Ajovin, Miguel & Ramos, Arturo, 2015. "An improvement over the normal distribution for log-growth rates of city sizes: Empirical evidence for France, Germany, Italy and Spain," MPRA Paper 67471, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  3. Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando, 2015. "US city size distribution revisited: Theory and empirical evidence," MPRA Paper 64051, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  4. Calderín-Ojeda, Enrique, 2016. "The distribution of all French communes: A composite parametric approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 450(C), pages 385-394.

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