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Zipf's Law and Urban Growth in Malaysia

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  • Kwok Tong Soo

    (Department of Economics, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster, LA1 4YX, UK, k.soo@lancaster.ac.uk)

Abstract

This paper performs a test of Zipf's law (the size distribution of cities follows a Pareto distribution with shape parameter equal to 1) using data for Malaysian cities from five population censuses (1957, 1970, 1980, 1991 and 2000). For the full sample, Zipf's law is rejected for all periods except 1957, in favour of a city size distribution that is more unequal than would be predicted by Zipf's law. Results at the upper tail, where the distribution fits the Pareto distribution better, are more favourable to Zipf's law. Evidence is also found against Gibrat's law of proportional growth: smaller cities grow faster, as do state capitals and cities in the states of Sabah and Selangor.

Suggested Citation

  • Kwok Tong Soo, 2007. "Zipf's Law and Urban Growth in Malaysia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 44(1), pages 1-14, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:44:y:2007:i:1:p:1-14
    DOI: 10.1080/00420980601023869
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    Cited by:

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    2. Klein, Alexander & Leunig, Tim, 2013. "Gibrat’s Law and the British Industrial Revolution," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 146, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    3. Aurélie Lalanne, 2014. "Zipf’s Law and Canadian Urban Growth," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(8), pages 1725-1740, June.
    4. Sebastien TERRA, 2009. "Zipf's Law for Cities: On a New Testing Procedure," Working Papers 200920, CERDI.
    5. Guy Michaels & Ferdinand Rauch & Stephen J. Redding, 2012. "Urbanization and Structural Transformation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 535-586.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Grover,Arti Goswami & Lall,Somik V., 2021. "Does Participation in Global Value Chains Reduce Spatial Inequalities within Countries ?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9619, The World Bank.
    9. Euijune Kim & Geoffrey Hewings & Kyung-Min Nam, 2014. "Optimal Urban Population Size: National vs Local Economic Efficiency," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(2), pages 428-445, February.
    10. Kyung-Min Nam & John M. Reilly, 2013. "City Size Distribution as a Function of Socioeconomic Conditions: An Eclectic Approach to Downscaling Global Population," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(1), pages 208-225, January.
    11. Hasan Engin Duran & Andrzej Cieślik, 2021. "The distribution of city sizes in Turkey: A failure of Zipf’s law due to concavity," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 1702-1719, October.
    12. Kwok Tong Soo, 2018. "Innovation across cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 295-314, March.
    13. González-Val, Rafael & Lanaspa, Luis & Sanz, Fernando, 2008. "New Evidence on Gibrat’s Law for Cities," MPRA Paper 10411, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. 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.
    15. 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.
    16. Hooi Hooi Lean & Russell Smyth, 2013. "Regional House Prices and the Ripple Effect in Malaysia," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(5), pages 895-922, April.
    17. Wu, Jian-Xin & He, Ling-Yun, 2017. "How do Chinese cities grow? A distribution dynamics approach," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 470(C), pages 105-118.
    18. Rafael González-Val, 2019. "US city-size distribution and space," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 283-300, July.
    19. Yongrui Guo & Jie Zhang & Honglei Zhang, 2016. "Rank–size distribution and spatio-temporal dynamics of tourist flows to China’s cities," Tourism Economics, , vol. 22(3), pages 451-465, June.

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