IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/wpaper/hal-04556678.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Size Distribution of Cities: Evidence from the Lab

Author

Listed:
  • Rocco Rante

    (Archéologie de L'Asie centrale - ArScAn - Archéologies et Sciences de l'Antiquité - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - MCC - Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ArScAn - Archéologies et Sciences de l'Antiquité - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - UP8 - Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis - UPN - Université Paris Nanterre - MCC - Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Federico Trionfetti

    (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Priyam Verma

    (AMSE - Aix-Marseille Sciences Economiques - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AMU - Aix Marseille Université - ECM - École Centrale de Marseille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

In this paper, we bring fresh evidence on the city size distribution from a ‘lab' represented by the region of Bukhara observed in the 9th CE. At that time this region was homogeneous in all respects (technology, amenities, climate, culture, language, religion, etc.) and yet cities had different sizes. We rationalize the city size distribution of this economy in a simple general equilibrium spatial model of which we estimate the parameters using the method of moments. The estimated model predicts very well the 9th century city size distribution. Spatial centrality is the major determinant of city size. The silk road contributes to explain what centrality cannot. We find little evidence of persistence of the urban structure when comparing the 9th and the 21st century. We find instead that centroid of the region has moved towards the economic core of the Uzbek economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Rocco Rante & Federico Trionfetti & Priyam Verma, 2024. "The Size Distribution of Cities: Evidence from the Lab," Working Papers hal-04556678, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04556678
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-04556678
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://hal.science/hal-04556678/document
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Schluter & Mark Trede, 2019. "Size distributions reconsidered," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(6), pages 695-710, July.
    2. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Small, Kenneth A & Rosen, Harvey S, 1981. "Applied Welfare Economics with Discrete Choice Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(1), pages 105-130, January.
    5. 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.
    6. Kristian Behrens & Gilles Duranton & Frédéric Robert-Nicoud, 2014. "Productive Cities: Sorting, Selection, and Agglomeration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(3), pages 507-553.
    7. Stephen J. Redding & Daniel M. Sturm, 2008. "The Costs of Remoteness: Evidence from German Division and Reunification," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 1766-1797, December.
    8. Rosen, Kenneth T. & Resnick, Mitchel, 1980. "The size distribution of cities: An examination of the Pareto law and primacy," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 165-186, September.
    9. Redding, Stephen J., 2016. "Goods trade, factor mobility and welfare," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 148-167.
    10. Brülhart, Marius & Carrère, Céline & Trionfetti, Federico, 2012. "How wages and employment adjust to trade liberalization: Quasi-experimental evidence from Austria," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(1), pages 68-81.
    11. Klaus Desmet & Dávid Krisztián Nagy & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2018. "The Geography of Development," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(3), pages 903-983.
    12. Lorenzo Caliendo & Maximiliano Dvorkin & Fernando Parro, 2019. "Trade and Labor Market Dynamics: General Equilibrium Analysis of the China Trade Shock," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 87(3), pages 741-835, May.
    13. Christian Schluter, 2021. "On Zipf’s law and the bias of Zipf regressions," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(2), pages 529-548, August.
    14. 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.
    15. Lee, Sanghoon & Li, Qiang, 2013. "Uneven landscapes and city size distributions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 19-29.
    16. Moshe Levy, 2009. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1672-1675, September.
    17. 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.
    18. Donald R. Davis & David E. Weinstein, 2002. "Bones, Bombs, and Break Points: The Geography of Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1269-1289, December.
    19. Krugman, Paul, 1996. "Confronting the Mystery of Urban Hierarchy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 399-418, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lee, Sanghoon & Li, Qiang, 2013. "Uneven landscapes and city size distributions," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 19-29.
    2. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    3. Rafael González-Val, 2019. "US city-size distribution and space," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 283-300, July.
    4. 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.
    5. Breinlich, Holger & Ottaviano, Gianmarco I.P. & Temple, Jonathan R.W., 2014. "Regional Growth and Regional Decline," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 4, pages 683-779, Elsevier.
    6. Behrens, Kristian & Robert-Nicoud, Frédéric, 2015. "Agglomeration Theory with Heterogeneous Agents," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 171-245, Elsevier.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Rafael González‐Val, 2019. "Historical urban growth in Europe (1300–1800)," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(2), pages 1115-1136, April.
    10. Christian Düben & Melanie Krause, 2021. "Population, light, and the size distribution of cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 61(1), pages 189-211, January.
    11. Desmet, Klaus & Henderson, J. Vernon, 2015. "The Geography of Development Within Countries," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: Gilles Duranton & J. V. Henderson & William C. Strange (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 1457-1517, Elsevier.
    12. Stef Proost & Jacques-François Thisse, 2019. "What Can Be Learned from Spatial Economics?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 57(3), pages 575-643, September.
    13. Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando, 2015. "US city size distribution revisited: Theory and empirical evidence," MPRA Paper 64051, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. repec:esx:essedp:729 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Stephen J. Redding, 2010. "The Empirics Of New Economic Geography," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 297-311, February.
    16. 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.
    17. Giorgio Fazio & Marco Modica, 2015. "Pareto Or Log-Normal? Best Fit And Truncation In The Distribution Of All Cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 736-756, November.
    18. Ge Hong & Shouhong Xie & Hanbing Li, 2022. "Spatial and Temporal Evolution Characteristics of China’s City Size Distribution Based on New Criteria," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(24), pages 1-20, December.
    19. Aurélie Lalanne, 2014. "Zipf’s Law and Canadian Urban Growth," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(8), pages 1725-1740, June.
    20. 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.
    21. Angelina Hackmann & Torben Klarl, 2020. "The evolution of Zipf's Law for U.S. cities," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(3), pages 841-852, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Spatial Model; Archaeological Data; Centrality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)
    • R13 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - General Equilibrium and Welfare Economic Analysis of Regional Economies
    • F1 - International Economics - - Trade

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-04556678. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.