Related papers: A Statistical Model of Inequality
In this communication, some economic models given by functional mappings are addressed. These are models for random markets where agents trade by pairs and exchange their money in a random and conservative way. They display the exponential…
We focus on the problem of how wealth is distributed among the units of a networked economic system. We first review the empirical results documenting that in many economies the wealth distribution is described by a combination of…
I measure the uncertainty affecting estimates of economic inequality in the US and investigate how accounting for properly estimated standard errors can affect the results of empirical and structural macroeconomic studies. In my analysis, I…
Thomas Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century puts forth a logically consistent explanation for changes in income and wealth inequality patterns. However, while rich in data, the book provides no formal empirical testing for its…
Various papers demonstrate the importance of inequality, poverty and the size of the middle class for economic growth. When explaining why these measures of the income distribution are added to the growth regression, it is often mentioned…
In view of some persistent recent reports on a singular kind of growth of the world wealth inequality, where a finite (often handful) number of people tend to possess more than the wealth of the planet's 50\% population, we explore here if…
Persistent wealth inequality, where a small fraction of the population accumulates most resources while the majority remains economically vulnerable, is a widespread phenomenon. We investigate its underlying mechanisms using an agent-based…
This paper proposes a nonparametric test for $m$th-degree inverse stochastic dominance which is a powerful tool for ranking distribution functions according to social welfare. We construct the test based on empirical process theory. The…
I generalize state-of-the-art approaches that decompose differences in the distribution of a variable of interest between two groups into a portion explained by covariates and a residual portion. The method that I propose relaxes the…
We present and analyze a model for the evolution of the wealth distribution within a heterogeneous economic environment. The model considers a system of rational agents interacting in a game theoretical framework, through fairly general…
In this paper we derive inferential results for a new index of inequality, specifically defined for capturing significant changes observed both in the left and in the right tail of the income distributions. The latter shifts are an apparent…
An important class of economic models involve agents whose wealth changes due to transactions with other agents. Several authors have pointed out an analogy with kinetic theory, which describes molecules whose momentum and energy changes…
We analyse the statistical properties of genealogical trees in a neutral model of a closed population with sexual reproduction and non-overlapping generations. By reconstructing the genealogy of an individual from the population evolution,…
This paper combines ideas from classical economics and modern finance with the general Lotka-Volterra models of Levy & Solomon to provide straightforward explanations of wealth and income distributions. Using a simple and realistic economic…
We discuss a family of models expressed by nonlinear differential equation systems describing closed market societies in the presence of taxation and redistribution. We focus in particular on three example models obtained in correspondence…
We develop a mathematical framework to study the economic impact of infectious diseases by integrating epidemiological dynamics with a kinetic model of wealth exchange. The multi-agent description leads to study the evolution over time of a…
A simple heuristic model, including the multiple exchanges between economic agents, is used to explain the mechanism of emerging and maintenance of social inequality in the market economy. The model allows calculating a density function of…
Probability distributions of money, income, and energy consumption per capita are studied for ensembles of economic agents. The principle of entropy maximization for partitioning of a limited resource gives exponential distributions for the…
We analyze a conservative market model for the competition among economic agents in a close society. A minimum dynamics ensures that the poorest agent has a chance to improve its economic welfare. After a transient, the system…
Capital usually leads to income, and income is more accurately and easily measured. Thus we summarize income distributions in USA, Germany, etc.