A scale-free transportation network explains the city-size distribution

Marcus Berliant and Axel Watanabe

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Zipf’s law is one of the best-known empirical regularities in urban economics. There is extensive research on the subject, where each city is treated symmetrically in terms of the cost of transactions with other cities. Recent developments in network theory facilitate the examination of an asymmetric transport network. In a scale-free network, the chance of observing extremes in network connections becomes higher than the Gaussian distribution predicts and therefore it explains the emergence of large clusters. The city-size distribution shares the same pattern. This paper decodes how accessibility of a city to other cities on the transportation network can boost its local economy and explains the city-size distribution as a result of its underlying transportation network structure. Finally, we discuss the endogenous evolution of transport networks.

Keywords: Zipf’s law; city-size distribution; scale-free network (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L14 R12 R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09-19
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-hme, nep-net, nep-tre and nep-ure
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Related works:
Journal Article: A scale‐free transportation network explains the city‐size distribution (2018)
Working Paper: A Scale-Free Transportation Network Explains the City-Size Distribution (2016)
Working Paper: A scale-free transportation network explains the city-size distribution (2014)
Working Paper: A Scale-Free Transportation Network Explains the City-Size Distribution (2012)
Working Paper: A scale-free transportation network explains the city-size distribution (2011)
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