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A Century of the Evolution of the Urban System in Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Valente J. Matlaba

    (University of Waikato)

  • Mark Holmes

    (University of Waikato)

  • Philip McCann

    (University of Groningen)

  • Jacques Poot

    (University of Waikato)

Abstract

In this paper, we study the hitherto unexplored evolution of the size distribution of 185 urban areas in Brazil between 1907 and 2008. We find that the power law parameter of the size distribution of the 100 largest urban areas increases from 0.63 in 1907 to 0.89 in 2008, which confirms an agglomeration process in which the size distribution has become more unequal. A panel fixed effects model pooling the same range of urban size distributions provides a power law parameter equal to 0.53, smaller than those from cross-sectional estimation. Clearly, Zipf’s Law is rejected. The lognormal distribution fits the city size distribution quite well until the 1940s, but since then applies to small and medium size cities only. These results are consistent with our understanding of historical-political and socio-economic processes that have shaped the development of Brazilian cities.

Suggested Citation

  • Valente J. Matlaba & Mark Holmes & Philip McCann & Jacques Poot, 2011. "A Century of the Evolution of the Urban System in Brazil," Working Papers in Economics 11/12, University of Waikato.
    • Handle: RePEc:wai:econwp:11/12
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    Cited by:

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    2. Cerqueti, Roy & Ausloos, Marcel, 2015. "Evidence of economic regularities and disparities of Italian regions from aggregated tax income size data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 421(C), pages 187-207.
    3. P. Nijkamp & A. Reggiani, 2012. "Did Zipf Anticipate Socio-Economic Spatial Networks?," Working Papers wp816, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    4. 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.
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    6. Arthur Grimes & Valente J Matlaba & Jacques Poot, 2017. "Spatial impacts of the creation of Brasília: A natural experiment," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(4), pages 784-800, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Zipf’s Law; Gibrat’s Law; lognormal distribution; city size; population growth; Brazil;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
    • N96 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • O18 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Urban, Rural, Regional, and Transportation Analysis; Housing; Infrastructure
    • 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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