IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jeicoo/v10y2015i1p79-89.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Wealth distribution and the Lorenz curve: a finitary approach

Author

Listed:
  • Enrico Scalas
  • Tijana Radivojević
  • Ubaldo Garibaldi

Abstract

We use three stochastic games for the wealth of economic agents which may be at work in a real economy and we derive their statistical equilibrium distributions. Based on a heuristic argument, we assume that the expected observed wealth distribution is a mixture of these three distributions. We compare the Lorenz curves obtained from this conjecture with the empirical curves for a set of countries. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Suggested Citation

  • Enrico Scalas & Tijana Radivojević & Ubaldo Garibaldi, 2015. "Wealth distribution and the Lorenz curve: a finitary approach," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 10(1), pages 79-89, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jeicoo:v:10:y:2015:i:1:p:79-89
    DOI: 10.1007/s11403-014-0136-2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11403-014-0136-2
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11403-014-0136-2?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sarabia, J. -M. & Castillo, Enrique & Slottje, Daniel J., 1999. "An ordered family of Lorenz curves," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 91(1), pages 43-60, July.
    2. Garibaldi,Ubaldo & Scalas,Enrico, 2010. "Finitary Probabilistic Methods in Econophysics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521515597.
    3. Helene, Otaviano, 2010. "Fitting Lorenz curves," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 153-155, August.
    4. Ogwang, Tomson & Rao, U. L. Gouranga, 2000. "Hybrid models of the Lorenz curve," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 39-44, October.
    5. Raberto, Marco & Teglio, Andrea & Cincotti, Silvano, 2012. "Debt, deleveraging and business cycles: An agent-based perspective," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 6, pages 1-49.
    6. Kakwani, Nanak C & Podder, N, 1976. "Efficient Estimation of the Lorenz Curve and Associated Inequality Measures from Grouped Observations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(1), pages 137-148, January.
    7. U. Garibaldi & D. Costantini & S. Donadio & P. Viarengo, 2006. "Herding and Clustering in Economics: The Yule-Zipf-Simon Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 27(1), pages 115-134, February.
    8. U. Garibaldi & E. Scalas & P. Viarengo, 2007. "Statistical equilibrium in simple exchange games II. The redistribution game," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 60(2), pages 241-246, November.
    9. E. Scalas & U. Garibaldi & S. Donadio, 2007. "Statistical equilibrium in simple exchange games I," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 60(2), pages 271-272, November.
    10. Aoki,Masanao, 2004. "Modeling Aggregate Behavior and Fluctuations in Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521606196.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miguel Sordo & Jorge Navarro & José Sarabia, 2014. "Distorted Lorenz curves: models and comparisons," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 42(4), pages 761-780, April.
    2. Thitithep Sitthiyot & Kanyarat Holasut, 2021. "A simple method for estimating the Lorenz curve," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-9, December.
    3. Satya Paul & Sriram Shankar, 2020. "An alternative single parameter functional form for Lorenz curve," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 59(3), pages 1393-1402, September.
    4. WANG, Zuxiang & SMYTH, Russell & NG, Yew-Kwang, 2009. "A new ordered family of Lorenz curves with an application to measuring income inequality and poverty in rural China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 218-235, June.
    5. Helene, Otaviano, 2010. "Fitting Lorenz curves," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 153-155, August.
    6. ZuXiang Wang & Yew-Kwang Ng & Russell Smyth, 2007. "Revisiting The Ordered Family Of Lorenz Curves," Monash Economics Working Papers 19-07, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    7. Florent Bresson, 2010. "A general class of inequality elasticities of poverty," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 8(1), pages 71-100, March.
    8. Sarabia, José María & Gómez-Déniz, Emilio & Sarabia, María & Prieto, Faustino, 2010. "A general method for generating parametric Lorenz and Leimkuhler curves," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 4(4), pages 524-539.
    9. Sarabia, José María & Castillo, Enrique & Pascual, Marta & Sarabia, María, 2005. "Mixture Lorenz curves," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(1), pages 89-94, October.
    10. Francois, Joseph & Rojas-Romagosa, Hugo, 2005. "The Construction and Interpretation of Combined Cross-Section and Time-Series Inequality Datasets," CEPR Discussion Papers 5214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Lorenzo Pareschi & Giuseppe Toscani, 2014. "Wealth distribution and collective knowledge. A Boltzmann approach," Papers 1401.4550, arXiv.org.
    12. Johan Fellman, 2021. "Empirical Analyses of Income: Finland (2009) and Australia (1967-1968)," Journal of Statistical and Econometric Methods, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 10(1), pages 1-3.
    13. Melanie Krause, 2014. "Parametric Lorenz Curves and the Modality of the Income Density Function," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(4), pages 905-929, December.
    14. Düring, Bertram & Matthes, Daniel & Toscani, Giuseppe, 2008. "A Boltzmann-type approach to the formation of wealth distribution curves," CoFE Discussion Papers 08/05, University of Konstanz, Center of Finance and Econometrics (CoFE).
    15. Andrew C. Chang & Phillip Li & Shawn M. Martin, 2018. "Comparing cross‐country estimates of Lorenz curves using a Dirichlet distribution across estimators and datasets," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 473-478, April.
    16. Duangkamon Chotikapanich & William Griffiths, 2005. "Averaging Lorenz curves," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 3(1), pages 1-19, April.
    17. Giulio Bottazzi & Ugo M. Gragnolati & Fabio Vanni, 2017. "Non-linear externalities in firm localization," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(8), pages 1138-1150, August.
    18. Lina Cortés & Juan M. Lozada & Javier Perote, 2019. "Firm size and concentration inequality: A flexible extension of Gibrat’s law," Documentos de Trabajo de Valor Público 17205, Universidad EAFIT.
    19. Chotikapanich, Duangkamon & Griffiths, William E, 2002. "Estimating Lorenz Curves Using a Dirichlet Distribution," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 290-295, April.
    20. Wang, ZuXiang & Smyth, Russell, 2015. "A hybrid method for creating Lorenz curves," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 59-63.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Wealth distribution; Lorenz curve; Markov chains ; Probabilistic methods; C80; D31;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C80 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - General
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jeicoo:v:10:y:2015:i:1:p:79-89. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.