  In this paper, the nonlinear distribution of employment across Spanish
municipalities is analyzed. In addition, we explore the properties of the
family of generalized power law (GPL) distributions, and test its adequacy for
modelling employment data. The hierarchical structure of the GPL family that
includes the hierarchy of Pareto (power law) distributions is deeply studied. A
new subfamily of heavy-tailed GPL distributions that is right tail equivalent
to a Pareto (power law) model is derived. Our findings show on the one hand
that the distribution of employment across Spanish municipalities follows a
power law behavior in the upper tail and, on the other hand, the adequacy of
GPL models for modelling employment data in the whole range of the
distribution.
