China's urban development policies and city growth dynamics: An analysis based on the Gibrat's Law

This paper links China's urban development policies to its city growth. China has experienced dramatic changes in urban development policies, from restricting (promoting) the growth of large (small) cities during the 1980 s and 1990 s, to relaxed control after 1998 and coordinated urbanization since 2001. Using city-level data from 1985 to 2012, via the Gibrat's law, this paper finds that city growth in China closely tracks these policies. City growth was size-convergent before 2000, but size-independent after 2000. The difference-in-difference analysis confirms that the growth of large cities accelerated after the control relaxation, compared to that of small and medium-sized cities.