Citation

Discussion Paper Details

Please find the details for DP9353 in an easy to copy and paste format below:

Full Details

Title: The Settlement of the United States, 1800 to 2000: The Long Transition towards Gibrat's Law

Author(s): Klaus Desmet and Jordan Rappaport

Publication Date: February 2013

Keyword(s): Gibrat's law, growth across space, long-term development, settlement of US and spatial distribution of population

Programme Area(s): International Trade and Regional Economics

Abstract: Gibrat's law, the orthogonality of growth with initial levels, has long been considered a stylized fact of local population growth. But throughout U.S. history, local population growth has significantly deviated from it. Across small locations, growth was strongly negatively correlated with initial population throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This strong convergence gave way to moderate divergence beginning in the mid-twentieth century. Across intermediate and large locations, growth became moderately positively correlated with initial population starting in the late nineteenth century. This divergence eventually dissipated but never completely. A simple-one sector model combining the entry of new locations, a friction from population growth, and a decrease in the congestion arising from the supply of land closely matches these and a number of other evolving empirical relationships.

For full details and related downloads, please visit: https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=9353

Bibliographic Reference

Desmet, K and Rappaport, J. 2013. 'The Settlement of the United States, 1800 to 2000: The Long Transition towards Gibrat's Law'. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=9353