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The evolution of the US urban structure from a long-run perspective (1900-2000)

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  • González-Val, Rafael

Abstract

This paper analyses the evolution of the size distribution of cities in the United States throughout the 20th century. In particular, we are interested in testing the fulfilment of two empirical regularities studied in urban economics: Zipf’s law, which postulates that the product between rank and size of a population is constant, and Gibrat’s law or the law of parallel growth, according to which the growth rate of a variable is independent of its initial size. For this parametrical and non-parametrical methods have been used. These laws have already been studied for the American case with the most populous cities or with MSAs. The main contribution of this work is the use of a new database with information on all the cities, thus covering the entire distribution. The results show that although if the sample is considered as a whole the fulfilment of Zipf’s law is rejected, Gibrat’s law is accepted for all the period considered.

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  • González-Val, Rafael, 2007. "The evolution of the US urban structure from a long-run perspective (1900-2000)," MPRA Paper 9732, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:9732
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    2. Esteban Rossi-Hansberg & Mark L. J. Wright, 2007. "Urban Structure and Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 74(2), pages 597-624.
    3. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    4. 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.
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    7. Huriot,Jean-Marie & Thisse,Jacques-François (ed.), 2000. "Economics of Cities," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521641906, October.
    8. Quah, D., 1990. "Galton'S Fallacy And The Tests Of The Convergence Hypothesis," Working papers 552, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Department of Economics.
    9. Danny Quah, 1993. "Galton's Fallacy and Tests of the Convergence Hypothesis (Now published in Scandinavian Journal of Economics 95 (4), 1993, pp.427-443.)," STICERD - Econometrics Paper Series 265, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    10. 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.
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    13. repec:bla:scandj:v:95:y:1993:i:4:p:427-43 is not listed on IDEAS
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Zipf’s law; Gibrat’s law; city size distribution; urban growth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • R00 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General - - - General

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