On the parametric description of the French, German, Italian and Spanish city size distributions

We study the parametric description of the city size distribution of four European countries: France, Germany, Italy and Spain. The parametric models used are the lognormal, the double Pareto lognormal, the normal-Box-Cox (defined in this paper) and the threshold double Pareto Singh--Maddala (introduced in a cited recent paper when studying US city size). The results are quite regular. The preferred model is always the threshold double Pareto Singh--Maddala in the four countries. However, the dPln is not rejected always for the case of France, and in the case of Italy the dPln is the runner-up distribution. These results complement those obtained in a cited recent paper which study the US places' city size distribution