Working Paper: NBER ID: w11762
Authors: Andrew K. Rose
Abstract: If one ranks cities by population, the rank of a city is inversely related to its size, a well-documented phenomenon known as Zipf's Law. Further, the growth rate of a city's population is uncorrelated with its size, another well-known characteristic known as Gibrat's Law. In this paper, I show that both characteristics are true of countries as well as cities; the size distributions of cities and countries are similar. But theories that explain the size-distribution of cities do not obviously apply in explaining the size-distribution of countries. The similarity of city- and country-size distributions is an interesting riddle.
Keywords: No keywords provided
JEL Codes: F00; R12
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| City Size (R12) | Growth Rate (O42) |
| Country Size (R12) | Growth Rate (O42) |
| Zipf's Law (R12) | Rank of City (R12) |
| Gibrat's Law (R12) | Growth Rate of Cities (R12) |
| Zipf's Law (R12) | Rank of Country (O57) |
| Country Size (R12) | Population Growth (J11) |