Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/225228 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Citation: 
[Journal:] KDI Journal of Economic Policy [ISSN:] 2586-4130 [Volume:] 42 [Issue:] 3 [Publisher:] Korea Development Institute (KDI) [Place:] Sejong [Year:] 2020 [Pages:] 1-32
Publisher: 
Korea Development Institute (KDI), Sejong
Abstract: 
This paper studies urban growth in Korean cities. First, I document that population growth patterns change over time and that the current population distribution supports random urban growth. I confirm two empirical laws—Zipf’s law and Gibrat’s law—both of which hold in the period of 1995-2015, but do not hold in the earlier period of 1975-1995. Second, I find a systematic employment growth pattern of Korean cities in spite of the random population growth. I examine market access effects on employment growth. Market access, a geographical advantage, has a significant influence on urban employment growth. The market access effect is higher in the Seoul metropolitan area than in the rest of the country. This effect is stronger on employment growth in the manufacturing industry compared to employment growth in the service industry. These results are robust with various checks (e.g., different definitions of urban areas). The results here suggest that policymakers should consider geographical characteristics when they make policy decisions with respect to regional development.
Subjects: 
Urban Growth
Market Access
Agglomeration Economies
City Size Distributions
JEL: 
R11
R12
J21
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
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Document Type: 
Article

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