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Gibrat’s law for cities, growth regressions and sample size

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

Abstract

This paper uses un-truncated city population data from six countries (the United States, Spain, Italy, France, England and Japan) to illustrate how parametric growth regressions can lead to biased results when testing for Gibrat’s law in city size distributions. The OLS results show non-monotonic behaviours depending on the sample size. Moreover, it is possible to find a critical sample size from which we reject Gibrat’s law.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:118:y:2013:i:2:p:367-369
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2012.11.020
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    2. González-Val, Rafael & Lanaspa, Luis & Sanz, Fernando, 2008. "New Evidence on Gibrat’s Law for Cities," MPRA Paper 10411, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. 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.
    4. González-Val, Rafael & Lanaspa, Luis & Sanz, Fernando, 2008. "New Evidence on Gibrat’s Law for Cities," MPRA Paper 10411, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Gabaix, Xavier & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2004. "The evolution of city size distributions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 53, pages 2341-2378, Elsevier.
    6. Rafael González‐Val, 2010. "The Evolution Of U.S. City Size Distribution From A Long‐Term Perspective (1900–2000)," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(5), pages 952-972, December.
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    Cited by:

    1. Miguel Puente-Ajovín & Arturo Ramos, 2015. "On the parametric description of the French, German, Italian and Spanish city size distributions," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 54(2), pages 489-509, March.
    2. Aurélie LALANNE & Martin ZUMPE, 2015. "Zipf’s law, Gibrat’s law and Cointegration," Cahiers du GREThA (2007-2019) 2015-27, Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée (GREThA).
    3. 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.
    4. Francisco J. Beltrán Tapia & Alfonso Díez-Minguela & Julio Martinez-Galarraga, 2021. "The shadow of cities: size, location and the spatial distribution of population," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 66(3), pages 729-753, June.
    5. 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).
    6. Ramos, Arturo, 2015. "Log-growth distributions of US city sizes and non-Lévy processes," MPRA Paper 66561, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    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. Beltràn Tapia, F. & Díez-Minguela, A. & Martínez-Galarraga, J., 2017. "The Shadow of Cities: Size, Location and the Spatial Distribution of Population in Spain," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1749, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Gibrat’s law; City size distribution; Urban growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

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