ZIPF'S LAW IN THE CASE OF MOROCCAN CITIES

Elhadj Ezzahid and Oumar ElHamdani

Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies, 2015, vol. 27, issue 2, 118-133

Abstract: type="main" xml:lang="en">

In this paper, we explore the validity of rank-size rule in the Moroccan urban system. We use data from the 1982, 1994, and 2004 censuses. Three thresholds are considered to truncate the data: 5000, 50000, and 100000 residents. Power law states that the rank (r) of a city is proportional to a power of its size (S r ), that is, r ̴ S-super-•-super-α. The ordinary least squares (OLS) method is used to estimate α. Using OLS method without Gabaix-Ibragimov correction (GIC) provides evidence of the validity of Zipf's law for cities of more than 100 000 dwellers.When the GIC is used, it appears that the zipfian distribution (α = -1) is also valid for cities of more than 50000 inhabitants. Over the period 1982–2004, it seems likely that intermediate cities grew more rapidly than other cities. This may lead to a more balanced distribution of the Moroccan urban system.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/ (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:revurb:v:27:y:2015:i:2:p:118-133

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0917-0553

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Review of Urban & Regional Development Studies from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().