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The pan-European population distribution across consistently defined functional urban areas

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  • Kurt Schmidheiny
  • Jens Suedekum

Abstract

We analyze the first data set on consistently defined functional urban areas in Europe and compare the European to the US urban system. City sizes in Europe do not follow a power law: the largest cities are ?too small? to follow Zipf?s law.

Suggested Citation

  • Kurt Schmidheiny & Jens Suedekum, 2015. "The pan-European population distribution across consistently defined functional urban areas," ERSA conference papers ersa15p349, European Regional Science Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wiwrsa:ersa15p349
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    10. Gabaix, Xavier & Ibragimov, Rustam, 2011. "Rank − 1 / 2: A Simple Way to Improve the OLS Estimation of Tail Exponents," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(1), pages 24-39.
    11. Gan, Li & Li, Dong & Song, Shunfeng, 2006. "Is the Zipf law spurious in explaining city-size distributions?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 256-262, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. Adelheid Holl, 2019. "Natural Geography and Patterns of Local Population Growth and Decline in Spain: 1960–2011," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-21, September.
    2. Sun, Xiangdong & Yuan, Ouyang & Xu, Zhao & Yin, Yanhui & Liu, Qian & Wu, Ling, 2021. "Did Zipf's Law hold for Chinese cities and why? Evidence from multi-source data," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    3. Cura, Robin & Cottineau, Clémentine & Swerts, Elfie & Ignazzi, Cosmo Antonio & Bretagnolle, Anne & Vacchiani-Marcuzzo, Celine & Pumain, Denise, 2017. "The Old and the New: Qualifying City Systems in the World with Classical Models and New Data," SocArXiv pbzn6, Center for Open Science.
    4. Rafael González‐Val, 2019. "Historical urban growth in Europe (1300–1800)," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(2), pages 1115-1136, April.
    5. Tomoya Mori & Jens Wrona, 2018. "Inter-city Trade," KIER Working Papers 995, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    6. Moisés Obaco & Juan Pablo Díaz-Sánchez, 2018. "“Urbanization in Ecuador: An overview using the FUA definition”," IREA Working Papers 201814, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Oct 2018.
    7. Tomoya Mori & Jens Wrona, 2021. "Centrality Bias in Inter-city Trade," KIER Working Papers 1056, Kyoto University, Institute of Economic Research.
    8. Puente-Ajovín, Miguel & Ramos, Arturo & Sanz-Gracia, Fernando & Arribas-Bel, Daniel, 2020. "How sensitive is city size distribution to the definition of city? The case of Spain," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    9. David Castells‐Quintana & Vicente Royuela & Paolo Veneri, 2020. "Inequality and city size: An analysis for OECD functional urban areas," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 99(4), pages 1045-1064, August.
    10. 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.
    11. Santiago Fernández-Rodríguez & Pablo Durán-Barroso & Inmaculada Silva-Palacios & Rafael Tormo-Molina & José María Maya-Manzano & Ángela Gonzalo-Garijo, 2016. "Forecast model of allergenic hazard using trends of Poaceae airborne pollen over an urban area in SW Iberian Peninsula (Europe)," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 84(1), pages 121-137, October.
    12. Adelheid Holl, 2018. "Local employment growth patterns and the Great Recession: The case of Spain," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 837-863, September.
    13. Miguel Puente-Ajovín & Marcos Sanso-Navarro & María Vera-Cabello, 2022. "The distribution of urban population and economic activity in the European Union and the United States," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 15(3), pages 517-522, December.
    14. 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.
    15. Moisés Obaco & Juan Pablo Díaz-Sánchez, 2018. "“An Overview of Urbanization in Ecuador under FUAs Definition”," AQR Working Papers 201807, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Jul 2018.
    16. Andrés Vallone & Coro Chasco, 2020. "Spatiotemporal methods for analysis of urban system dynamics: an application to Chile," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 64(2), pages 421-454, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    City size distributions; Zipf?s law; functional urban areas; urban systems;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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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