Can the internet reshape the national city size distribution? Cross‐country evidence

Abstract

AbstractThis paper examines the effect of the internet on city size distribution at a global level based on city identification in nearly 100 countries. The results show that the internet first promotes the decentralization of the national city size distribution and then promotes the concentration with an increase in the internet penetration rate. These results differ from those found in the existing literature and help deepen the understanding of the internet's impact on city size distribution by providing new evidence with more reliable data and unified city definitions. The findings also have important policy implications for predicting population distribution and planning human habitations at the national level.