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Power Law Scaling in the World Income Distribution

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Author Info
Corrado Di Guilmi () (Department of Economics - Università Politecnica delle Marche)
Edoardo Gaffeo () (Department of Economics - University of Udine)
Mauro Gallegati () (Department of Economics - Università Politecnica delle Marche)

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

We show that over the period 1960-1997, the range comprised between the 30th and the 85th percentiles of the world income distribution expressed in terms of GDP per capita invariably scales down as a Pareto distribution. Furthermore, the time path of the power law exponent displays a negatively sloped trend. Our findings suggest that the cross-country average growth process appears to be scale invariant but for countries in the tails of the world income distribution, and that the relative volatility of smaller countries' growth processes have increased over time.

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Publisher Info
Article provided by Economics Bulletin in its journal Economics Bulletin.

Volume (Year): 15 (2003)
Issue (Month): 6 ()
Pages: 1-7
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:v:15:y:2003:i:6:p:1-7

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Related research
Keywords: Growth; Power law; World Income Distribution;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
O4 - Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity
E1 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Charles I. Jones, . "On the Evolution of the World Income Distribution," Working Papers 97009, Stanford University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Aoki, Masanao, 1998. "Simple Model Of Asymmetrical Business Cycles: Interactive Dynamics Of A Large Number Of Agents With Discrete Choices," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(04), pages 427-442, December. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Long, John B, Jr & Plosser, Charles I, 1983. "Real Business Cycles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 39-69, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Segerstrom, Paul S, 1998. "Endogenous Growth without Scale Effects," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(5), pages 1290-1310, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Stanley, Michael H. R. & Buldyrev, Sergey V. & Havlin, Shlomo & Mantegna, Rosario N. & Salinger, Michael A. & Eugene Stanley, H., 1995. "Zipf plots and the size distribution of firms," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 49(4), pages 453-457, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Danny Quah, 1992. "Empirical cross-section dynamics in economic growth," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 75, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Danny Quah, 1996. "Twin Peaks: Growth and Convergence in Models of Distribution Dynamics," CEP Discussion Papers dp0280, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE. [Downloadable!]
  9. Baumol, William J, 1986. "Productivity Growth, Convergence, and Welfare: What the Long-run Data Show," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(5), pages 1072-85, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Dinopoulos, Elias & Thompson, Peter, 1998. " Schumpeterian Growth without Scale Effects," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 3(4), pages 313-35, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. repec:cup:macdyn:v:2:y:1998:i:4:p:427-42 is not listed on IDEAS
  13. Canning, D. & Amaral, L. A. N. & Lee, Y. & Meyer, M. & Stanley, H. E., 1998. "Scaling the volatility of GDP growth rates," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(3), pages 335-341, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Quah, Danny, 1996. "Twin Peaks: Growth and Convergence in Models of Distribution Dynamics," CEPR Discussion Papers 1355, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  15. Charles I. Jones, 1999. "Growth: With or Without Scale Effects?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(2), pages 139-144, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  16. John Sutton, 1997. "Gibrat's Legacy," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 35(1), pages 40-59, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Youngki Lee & Luis A. N. Amaral & David Canning & Martin Meyer & H. Eugene Stanley, 1998. "Universal features in the growth dynamics of complex organizations," Quantitative Finance Papers cond-mat/9804100, arXiv.org. [Downloadable!]
  18. Agenor, Pierre-Richard & McDermott, C John & Prasad, Eswar S, 2000. "Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Developing Countries: Some Stylized Facts," World Bank Economic Review, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 251-85, May. [Downloadable!]
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  19. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf'S Law For Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Pritchett, Lant, 1995. "Divergence, big time," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1522, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Carlo Bianchi & Pasquale Cirillo & Mauro Gallegati & Pietro Vagliasindi, 2007. "Validating and Calibrating Agent-Based Models: A Case Study," Computational Economics, Springer, vol. 30(3), pages 245-264, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Roki Iwahashi & Tomohiro Machikita, 2004. "A new empirical regularity in world income distribution dynamics, 1960-2001," Economics Bulletin, Economics Bulletin, vol. 6(19), pages 1-15. [Downloadable!]
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