Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/217132 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Citation: 
[Journal:] Quantitative Economics [ISSN:] 1759-7331 [Volume:] 9 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] The Econometric Society [Place:] New Haven, CT [Year:] 2018 [Pages:] 1419-1451
Publisher: 
The Econometric Society, New Haven, CT
Abstract: 
Zipf's law is one of the best known empirical regularities in urban economics. There is extensive research on the subject, where each city is treated symmetrically in terms of the cost of transactions with other cities. Recent developments in network theory facilitate the examination of an asymmetric transport network. In a scale-free network, the chance of observing extremes in network connections becomes higher than the Gaussian distribution predicts and, therefore, it explains the emergence of large clusters. The city-size distribution shares the same pattern. This paper decodes how accessibility of a city to other cities on the transportation network can boost its local economy and explains the city-size distribution as a result of its underlying transportation network structure. We confirm our model predictions with US and Belgian data. Finally, we discuss the endogenous evolution of transport networks.
Subjects: 
Zipf's law
city-size distribution
scale-free network
JEL: 
L14
R12
R40
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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