Evolution,determinants And Economic Growth Of City Size Distribution

The surge of urbanization in the world is led by the urban development,because cities accommodate the agglomeration of most contemporary social and economic activities.The continuous emergence of mega-cities and the rapid expansion of urban areas are challenging the layout of economic geography in many countries.Under the impact of economic globalization,establishing a competitive urban system will surely promote the steady development of economy and increase the regional competitive potential.Our country with vast territory and abundant resources is facing the huge challenge of transformation from an economic giant to an economic power.To cross the middle-income trap and maintain national security and social stability,an appropriate layout of cities is needed.Therefore,the research of the evolutionary trend,determinants and economic growth of city-size distribution at the cross-country level is very important to provide the international experience for future urbanization construction in China.Although the study of urban system is an important part of regional economic and economic geography,there are only a few studies of city-size distribution at the cross-country level.Due to the ambiguous definition of the urban population,the lack of recent data and reasonable econometric methods,there are no consistent conclusions on the evolutionary trends,determinants and economic growth in the existing literature and there is also lack of further research of the key variables such as the national scale.In order to study the evolutionary trend,determinants and economic growth of city size distribution in this paper,we use cross-national population panel data of urban agglomerations released by the United Nations in 2014,and use Rank-size rule to measure the balance of distribution of cities,and also combine cross-sectional econometric model and panel model.This paper may contribute to enriching the theoretical research related to city size distribution,and providing practical experience and academic backing for future development of urban layout and policy-making in China from an international perspective.The results show that city size distribution in major countries remains rather stable in the past six decades because effects of different factors on city size distribution are heterogeneous and their opposing effects cancel each other out.Among them,urbanization,industrialization,and greater internet access help the growth of smaller cities,while economic freedom and the improvement of sanitation foster the growth of larger cities relatively more.We also find that national scale represented by population and land area is a key determinant of the difference of city size distribution among countries,which suggests that larger countries should follow a relatively balanced layout of cities.In addition,a balanced urban layout will further promote economic growth for most of the larger countries.Only a few of small countries will benefit from a single-center urban hierarchies.Our results imply that,at least currently,it is unnecessary for media and scholars to worry about skewed urban hierarchies.However,the natural endowments of each country need to be considered in their own urban policies.Larger countries should follow a relatively balanced development path and in order to promote the development of the western and central regions,it is necessary for our country to implement spatially-targeted policies.