Zipf's law deviations for Philippine cities and municipalities: An analysis using the 2020 Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index

Abstract

Under the concept of opposing forces, factors associated with city sizes greater than expected by Zipf's law (negative deviation) can be seen as 'attractive,' while factors linked with sizes lesser than expected (positive deviation) as 'dispersive.' These factors are identified for the Philippine local government units (LGUs) using a multinomial logit model with the deviations from Zipf's law as the outcomes and the Cities and Municipalities Competitiveness Index (CMCI) indicators as the explanatory variables. The 2020 census data and CMCI indicators for the LGUs are used. The results show that the attractive factors are local economy growth, social protection, health infrastructure, and budget for DRRMP, with the initial two variables connected with a greater increase in size. On the other hand, the dispersive factors are capacity of health services, peace and order, and education infrastructure, which have the first two variables linked with a larger decrease in size. Further investigations can be done, especially for the dispersive factors as their results are contrary to general economic principles.