The distribution of urban population and economic activity in the European Union and the United States

Abstract

This letter compares the distribution of urban population and economic activity in the European Union and the United States. Economic activity, proxied with nighttime lights, is more unevenly distributed than population, especially in Europe. This reflects that more population does not necessarily imply a higher level of economic activity. Both Zipf's law and a Pareto distribution are rejected for aggregate nighttime lights within urban extents. Therefore, alternative specifications are required for the distribution of city sizes in terms of economic activity.