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  3. American Economic Review
  4. December 2004
  5. Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities

American Economic Review

ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)

Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities

  • Jan Eeckhout
American Economic Review
vol. 94, no. 5, December 2004
(pp. 1429–1451)
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Abstract

Two empirical regularities concerning the size distribution of cities have repeatedly been established: Zipf's law holds (the upper tail is Pareto), and city growth is proportionate. Census 2000 data are used covering the entire size distribution, not just the upper tail. The nontruncated distribution is shown to be lognormal, rather than Pareto. This provides a simple justification for the coexistence of proportionate growth and the resulting lognormal distribution. An equilibrium theory of local externalities that can explain the empirical size distribution of cities is proposed. The driving force is a random productivity process of local economies and the perfect mobility of workers.

Citation

Eeckhout, Jan. 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities." American Economic Review, 94 (5): 1429–1451. DOI: 10.1257/0002828043052303

JEL Classification

  • R11 Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
  • R12 Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity
  • R23 Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics: Regional Migration; Regional Labor Markets; Population; Neighborhood Characteristics