Searching for the Parallel Growth of Cities

28 Pages Posted: 22 Mar 2010

See all articles by Zhihong Chen

Zhihong Chen

University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) - School of International Trade and Economics

Shihe Fu

Xiamen University - The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE)

Dayong Zhang

Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) - Research Institute of Economics & Management

Date Written: March 19, 2010

Abstract

Three urban growth theories predict parallel growth of cities. The endogenous growth theory predicts deterministic parallel growth; the random growth theory implies that city growth follows Gibrat’s law with a steady-state distribution; and the hybrid growth theory suggests the co-movement of random city growth. This paper uses the Chinese city size data from 1984-2006 and time series econometric techniques to test for parallel growth. The results from various types of stationarity tests on pooled heterogeneous cities show that city growth is random. However, once growth trend and structural change are taken into account, certain groups of cities with common group characteristics, such as similar natural resource endowment or policy regime, grow parallel.

Keywords: Urban Growth, Parallel Growth, Zipf’s Law, Unit Root, Structural Change

JEL Classification: C22; R11; R12

Suggested Citation

Chen, Zhihong and Fu, Shihe and Zhang, Dayong, Searching for the Parallel Growth of Cities (March 19, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1576060 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1576060

Zhihong Chen

University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) - School of International Trade and Economics ( email )

10 East Huixin Street
Chaouang District
Beijing, 100029
China

Shihe Fu (Contact Author)

Xiamen University - The Wang Yanan Institute for Studies in Economics (WISE) ( email )

A 307, Economics Building
Xiamen, Fujian 361005
China

Dayong Zhang

Southwestern University of Finance and Economics (SWUFE) - Research Institute of Economics & Management ( email )

55 Guanghuacun Street
Chengdu, Sichuan 610074
China

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