The size distribution across all cities - Double Pareto lognormal strikes

Kristian Giesen, Arndt Zimmermann and Jens Suedekum

Journal of Urban Economics, 2010, vol. 68, issue 2, 129-137

Abstract: Using un-truncated settlement size data from eight countries, we show that the "double Pareto lognormal" (DPLN) distribution provides a better fit to actual city sizes than the simple lognormal (LN) distribution. The DPLN has a lognormal body and features a power law in both the lower and the upper tail. It emerges in the steady-state of a stochastic urban growth process with random city formation. Our findings reconcile a recent debate on the Zipfian rank-size rule for city sizes.

Keywords: Zipf's; law; Urban; growth; Gibrat's; law; City; size; distributions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (114)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:juecon:v:68:y:2010:i:2:p:129-137

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