An important literature has focused on then rank size rule and the Zipf’s law without delivering significant results. Among the reasons for this low scientific productivity, one can find ommisions and misunderstandings between different scientific fields, the generalization of physical and...

This paper applies a rank-size model on panel data. By introducing the spatial dimension of data, it aims in taking into account spatial autocorrelation effects on the Zipf law. We apply Debarsy and Ertur (2010) methodology in order to choose the best specification between three alternative...

One of the stylised facts in Urban Economics is Zipf’s law, according to which city size distribution in many countries can be approximated by a Pareto distribution, whose exponent is equal to one. In this paper we point out the three main issues in any empirical work on city size distribution...

The hierarchical organization of human settlements is a key-subject for various studies from different scientific areas in regional science such as economics, geography, sociology or even archeology. The aim of this paper is to consider contributions from different scientific fields in order to...

Australia shapes a unique urban system. This paper examines the Australian urban system using data for urban centers and localities in 1996 and 2001. A summary and a basic descriptive analysis of the database are provided, followed by an examination of whether the system follows Zipf’s and...