The Evolution of China’s City Size Distribution: Empirical Evidence from 1949 to 2008

This paper studies the evolution of China’s city size distribution, measured by non-agricultural population, from 1949 to 2008. We employ time series Gini coefficients, panel unit root test of Gibrat’s law, and analysis of distribution dynamics, to check the robustness of our findings. We find that although China’s city size distribution presented different patterns of growth in the short run, it has shown an approximately parallel growth model in the long run. This indicates that the parallel growth rule of city size distribution also applies to developing countries, though it might work differently there. In countries with relatively mature and complete urban systems, the parallel growth results from similar growth rates in all the cities. In developing countries experiencing rapid urbanization, the parallel growth mainly results from the emergence and rise of a large number of new cities, which offsets the fast growth rate of large cities. This also demonstrates that government policy aiming at affecting city size may be misleading.