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Power laws and macroeconomic fluctuations

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  • Gaffeo, Edoardo
  • Gallegati, Mauro
  • Giulioni, Gianfranco
  • Palestrini, Antonio

Abstract

We study the duration distribution of recessions and recoveries occurred in a pool of industrialized countries during the last 120 years. We find that for recessions the duration is distributed according to a power law, and that the power exponent is virtually invariant as we split up the time span into sub-periods. The evidence regarding the duration of recoveries is mixed, however.

Suggested Citation

  • Gaffeo, Edoardo & Gallegati, Mauro & Giulioni, Gianfranco & Palestrini, Antonio, 2003. "Power laws and macroeconomic fluctuations," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 324(1), pages 408-416.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:324:y:2003:i:1:p:408-416
    DOI: 10.1016/S0378-4371(02)01891-5
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    1. Susanto Basu & Alan M. Taylor, 1999. "Business Cycles in International Historical Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 45-68, Spring.
    2. Ormerod, Paul & Mounfield, Craig, 2001. "Power law distribution of the duration and magnitude of recessions in capitalist economies: breakdown of scaling," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 293(3), pages 573-582.
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    Cited by:

    1. Edgardo Bucciarelli & Marcello Silvestri, 2013. "Hyman P. Minsky's unorthodox approach: recent advances in simulation techniques to develop his theoretical assumptions," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(2), pages 299-324.
    2. Campolieti, Michele, 2019. "The durations of recession and prosperity: What distribution do they follow?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 534(C).
    3. Mauro Gallegati & Gianfranco Giulioni & Nozomi Kichiji, 2003. "Complex Dynamics And Financial Fragility In An Agent-Based Model," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 6(03), pages 267-282.
    4. Delli Gatti, Domenico & Di Guilmi, Corrado & Gaffeo, Edoardo & Gallegati, Mauro, 2004. "Bankruptcy as an exit mechanism for systems with a variable number of components," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 344(1), pages 8-13.
    5. Di Guilmi, Corrado & Gaffeo, Edoardo & Gallegati, Mauro, 2004. "Empirical results on the size distribution of business cycle phases," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 333(C), pages 325-334.
    6. Neveu, Andre R., 2013. "Fiscal policy and business cycle characteristics in a heterogeneous agent macro model," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 224-240.
    7. Guilmi, Corrado Di & Gallegati, Mauro & Ormerod, Paul, 2004. "Scaling invariant distributions of firms’ exit in OECD countries," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 334(1), pages 267-273.
    8. Paul Ormerod & Amy Heineike, 2009. "Global recessions as a cascade phenomenon with interacting agents," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 4(1), pages 15-26, June.
    9. Michał Brzeziński, 2013. "Robust estimation of the Pareto index: A Monte Carlo Analysis," Working Papers 2013-32, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    10. Fabio Clementi & Marco Gallegati & Mauro Gallegati, 2015. "Growth and Cycles of the Italian Economy Since 1861: The New Evidence," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 1(1), pages 25-59, March.

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