A nonparametric analysis of the growth process of Indian cities

Jeff Luckstead and Stephen Devadoss

Economics Letters, 2014, vol. 124, issue 3, 516-519

Abstract: We examine the growth process of the largest cities in India for the post economic reform period 1991–2011 to analyze Gibrat’s and Zipf’s laws by applying nonparametric estimation. The results from stochastic kernel, contour plots, and expected growth rate and variance conditional on city size establish that Gibrat’s law holds for largest cities in India, i.e., city growth is independent of population size, and the local Zipf exponent is around one and stable. Gibrat’s law is also confirmed by the parametric regression of the aggregate relationship of the growth rate on city size.

Keywords: Gibrat’s law; Growth process; Indian cities; Local Zipf exponent (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C14 D30 R23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:124:y:2014:i:3:p:516-519

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2014.07.022

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