Simulation of population distributions of subnational entities

Vékás, Péter (2021) Simulation of population distributions of subnational entities. Working Paper. Corvinus University of Budapest. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

Most sovereign countries are divided into administrative divisions. The population distribution of these subdivisions within a country is an important characteristic of national electoral systems. Supported by theoretical models [Gabaix, 1999], power law distributions were traditionally a frequent choice to describe population sizes of subnational territorial entities. Nevertheless, they have proven to be inadequate in practice on empirical data of cities [Soo, 2004] as well as first-level administrative units [Fontanelli et al., 2017]. Recently, the Discrete Generalized Beta Distribution (DGBD), a broader class of statistical distributions encompassing power laws and several other important special cases, has been used successfully to characterize population sizes of natural cities [Li et al., 2015], countries and their second-level administrative units [Fontanelli et al., 2017], and additionally, the latter paper outlined a model to support its validity.

Item Type:

Monograph (Working Paper)

JEL classification:

C15 - Statistical Simulation Methods: General

Divisions:

Faculty of Economics > Department of Operations Research and Actuarial Sciences

Subjects:

Economics

References:

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ID Code:

6239

Deposited By:

Péter Vékás

Deposited On:

10 Feb 2021 13:38

Last Modified:

10 Feb 2021 13:38

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