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Zipf's Law in Economics

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  • Gerrit de Wit

Abstract

Many empirical size distributions in economics and elsewhere follow Zipf?s law. Starting from the Gibrat assumption, it is essential to add a second as-sumption to explain this phenomenon.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerrit de Wit, 2005. "Zipf's Law in Economics," Scales Research Reports N200503, EIM Business and Policy Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:eim:papers:n200503
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. de Wit, Gerrit, 2005. "Firm size distributions: An overview of steady-state distributions resulting from firm dynamics models," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 23(5-6), pages 423-450, June.
    2. Reed, William J., 2001. "The Pareto, Zipf and other power laws," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 15-19, December.
    3. Fujiwara, Yoshi & Di Guilmi, Corrado & Aoyama, Hideaki & Gallegati, Mauro & Souma, Wataru, 2004. "Do Pareto–Zipf and Gibrat laws hold true? An analysis with European firms," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 335(1), pages 197-216.
    4. 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.
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