Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/88093 
Year of Publication: 
2013
Series/Report no.: 
DICE Discussion Paper No. 120
Publisher: 
Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE), Düsseldorf
Abstract: 
There has been vast interest in the distribution of city sizes in an economy, but this research has largely neglected that cities also differ along another fundamental dimension: age. Using novel data on the foundation dates of more than 10,000 American cities, we find that older cities in the US tend to be larger than younger ones. To take this nexus between city age and city size into account, we introduce endogenous city creation into a dynamic economic model of an urban system. The city size distribution that emerges in our economy delivers a close fit to different types of US city size data. This evidence can resolve several recent debates, and build a bridge between different views in the literature on city size distributions.
Subjects: 
Zipf's law
Gibrat's law
city size distributions
city age
DPLN distribution
JEL: 
R11
R12
ISBN: 
978-3-86304-119-9
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
552.37 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.