IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1112.2168.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Firm dynamics in a closed, conserved economy: A model of size distribution of employment and related statistics

Author

Listed:
  • Anindya S. Chakrabarti

Abstract

We address the issue of the distribution of firm size. To this end we propose a model of firms in a closed, conserved economy populated with zero-intelligence agents who continuously move from one firm to another. We then analyze the size distribution and related statistics obtained from the model. Our ultimate goal is to reproduce the well known statistical features obtained from the panel study of the firms i.e., the power law in size (in terms of income and/or employment), the Laplace distribution in the growth rates and the slowly declining standard deviation of the growth rates conditional on the firm size. First, we show that the model generalizes the usual kinetic exchange models with binary interaction to interactions between an arbitrary number of agents. When the number of interacting agents is in the order of the system itself, it is possible to decouple the model. We provide some exact results on the distributions. Our model easily reproduces the power law. The fluctuations in the growth rate falls with increasing size following a power law (with an exponent 1 whereas the data suggests that the exponent is around 1/6). However, the distribution of the difference of the firm-size in this model has Laplace distribution whereas the real data suggests that the difference of the log sizes has the same distribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Anindya S. Chakrabarti, 2011. "Firm dynamics in a closed, conserved economy: A model of size distribution of employment and related statistics," Papers 1112.2168, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1112.2168
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1112.2168
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alex Coad, 2007. "A Closer Look at Serial Growth Rate Correlation," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 31(1), pages 69-82, August.
    2. Aoyama,Hideaki & Fujiwara,Yoshi & Ikeda,Yuichi & Iyetomi,Hiroshi & Souma,Wataru Preface by-Name:Yoshikawa,Hiroshi, 2010. "Econophysics and Companies," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521191494.
    3. Repetowicz, Przemysław & Hutzler, Stefan & Richmond, Peter, 2005. "Dynamics of money and income distributions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 356(2), pages 641-654.
    4. Anirban Chakraborti & Bikas K. Chakrabarti, 2000. "Statistical mechanics of money: How saving propensity affects its distribution," Papers cond-mat/0004256, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2000.
    5. Ishikawa, Atushi, 2005. "Pareto law and Pareto index in the income distribution of Japanese companies," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 349(3), pages 597-608.
    6. Kordecki, Wojciech, 1997. "Reliability bounds for multistage structures with independent components," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 43-51, May.
    7. Sen, Ananda & Balakrishnan, N., 1999. "Convolution of geometrics and a reliability problem," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 43(4), pages 421-426, July.
    8. Marco Patriarca & Anirban Chakraborti & Kimmo Kaski & Guido Germano, 2005. "Kinetic theory models for the distribution of wealth: power law from overlap of exponentials," Papers physics/0504153, arXiv.org, revised May 2005.
    9. Jovanovic, Boyan, 1979. "Job Matching and the Theory of Turnover," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 972-990, October.
    10. L. A. N. Amaral & S. V. Buldyrev & S. Havlin & H. Leschhorn & P. Maass & M. A. Salinger & H. E. Stanley & M. H. R. Stanley, 1997. "Scaling behavior in economics: I. Empirical results for company growth," Papers cond-mat/9702082, arXiv.org.
    11. M. Patriarca & E. Heinsalu & A. Chakraborti, 2010. "Basic kinetic wealth-exchange models: common features and open problems," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 73(1), pages 145-153, January.
    12. Timothy Dunne & Mark J. Roberts & Larry Samuelson, 1989. "The Growth and Failure of U. S. Manufacturing Plants," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 104(4), pages 671-698.
    13. Steven J. Davis & John Haltiwanger, 1992. "Gross Job Creation, Gross Job Destruction, and Employment Reallocation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(3), pages 819-863.
    14. Ishikawa, Atushi, 2006. "Pareto index induced from the scale of companies," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 363(2), pages 367-376.
    15. Chakrabarti, Anindya S., 2011. "An almost linear stochastic map related to the particle system models of social sciences," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(23), pages 4370-4378.
    16. A. Chatterjee & B. K. Chakrabarti, 2007. "Kinetic exchange models for income and wealth distributions," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 60(2), pages 135-149, November.
    17. Chakrabarti, Anindya S. & Chakrabarti, Bikas K., 2009. "Microeconomics of the ideal gas like market models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 388(19), pages 4151-4158.
    18. Aoyama, Hideaki & Fujiwara, Yoshi & Souma, Wataru, 2004. "Kinematics and dynamics of Pareto–Zipf's law and Gibrat's law," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 344(1), pages 117-121.
    19. Arnab Chatterjee & Bikas K. Chakrabarti, 2007. "Kinetic Exchange Models for Income and Wealth Distributions," Papers 0709.1543, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2007.
    20. A. Chakraborti & B.K. Chakrabarti, 2000. "Statistical mechanics of money: how saving propensity affects its distribution," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 17(1), pages 167-170, September.
    21. Ajit Singh & Geoffrey Whittington, 1975. "The Size and Growth of Firms," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(1), pages 15-26.
    22. Anindya S. Chakrabarti, 2011. "An almost linear stochastic map related to the particle system models of social sciences," Papers 1101.3617, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2011.
    23. Chakrabarti, Anindya S. & Chakrabarti, Bikas K., 2010. "Statistical theories of income and wealth distribution," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-31.
    24. Vining, Daniel R, Jr, 1976. "Autocorrelated Growth Rates and the Pareto Law: A Further Analysis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(2), pages 369-380, April.
    25. 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.
    26. Atushi Ishikawa, 2005. "Pareto index induced from the scale of companies," Papers physics/0506066, arXiv.org.
    27. P. K. Mohanty, 2006. "Generic features of the wealth distribution in ideal-gas-like markets," Papers physics/0603141, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2006.
    28. Victor M. Yakovenko & J. Barkley Rosser, 2009. "Colloquium: Statistical mechanics of money, wealth, and income," Papers 0905.1518, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2009.
    29. S. V. Buldyrev & L. A. N. Amaral & S. Havlin & H. Leschhorn & P. Maass & M. A. Salinger & H. E. Stanley & M. H. R. Stanley, 1997. "Scaling behavior in economics: II. Modeling of company growth," Papers cond-mat/9702085, arXiv.org.
    30. Atushi Ishikawa, 2004. "Pareto law and Pareto index in the income distribution of Japanese companies," Papers cond-mat/0409145, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2004.
    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. Chakrabarti, Anindya S., 2012. "Effects of the turnover rate on the size distribution of firms: An application of the kinetic exchange models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(23), pages 6039-6050.
    2. Anindya S. Chakrabarti, 2013. "Bimodality in the firm size distributions: a kinetic exchange model approach," Papers 1302.3818, arXiv.org, revised May 2013.
    3. Chakrabarti, Anindya S., 2011. "An almost linear stochastic map related to the particle system models of social sciences," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(23), pages 4370-4378.
    4. Chakrabarti, Anindya S. & Chakrabarti, Bikas K., 2010. "Inequality reversal: Effects of the savings propensity and correlated returns," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(17), pages 3572-3579.
    5. Chakrabarti, Anindya S. & Chakrabarti, Bikas K., 2010. "Statistical theories of income and wealth distribution," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-31.
    6. Anirban Chakraborti & Ioane Muni Toke & Marco Patriarca & Frédéric Abergel, 2011. "Econophysics review: II. Agent-based models," Post-Print hal-00621059, HAL.
    7. Victor M. Yakovenko & J. Barkley Rosser, 2009. "Colloquium: Statistical mechanics of money, wealth, and income," Papers 0905.1518, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2009.
    8. Costas Efthimiou & Adam Wearne, 2016. "Household Income Distribution in the USA," Papers 1602.06234, arXiv.org.
    9. Takeshi Kato, 2022. "Wealth Redistribution and Mutual Aid: Comparison using Equivalent/Nonequivalent Exchange Models of Econophysics," Papers 2301.00091, arXiv.org.
    10. Ghosh, Asim & Chatterjee, Arnab & Inoue, Jun-ichi & Chakrabarti, Bikas K., 2016. "Inequality measures in kinetic exchange models of wealth distributions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 451(C), pages 465-474.
    11. 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).
    12. Victor M. Yakovenko, 2012. "Applications of statistical mechanics to economics: Entropic origin of the probability distributions of money, income, and energy consumption," Papers 1204.6483, arXiv.org.
    13. Aydiner, Ekrem & Cherstvy, Andrey G. & Metzler, Ralf, 2018. "Wealth distribution, Pareto law, and stretched exponential decay of money: Computer simulations analysis of agent-based models," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 490(C), pages 278-288.
    14. Anindya S. Chakrabarti, 2011. "An almost linear stochastic map related to the particle system models of social sciences," Papers 1101.3617, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2011.
    15. Anindya S. Chakrabarti & Bikas K. Chakrabarti, 2010. "Inequality reversal: effects of the savings propensity and correlated returns," Papers 1005.3518, arXiv.org.
    16. Sokolov, Andrey & Melatos, Andrew & Kieu, Tien, 2010. "Laplace transform analysis of a multiplicative asset transfer model," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(14), pages 2782-2792.
    17. Bertotti, Maria Letizia & Modanese, Giovanni, 2011. "From microscopic taxation and redistribution models to macroscopic income distributions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 390(21), pages 3782-3793.
    18. Jan Lorenz & Fabian Paetzel & Frank Schweitzer, 2013. "Redistribution Spurs Growth by Using a Portfolio Effect on Risky Human Capital," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(2), pages 1-13, February.
    19. Anindya S. Chakrabarti, 2017. "Scale-free distribution as an economic invariant: a theoretical approach," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 12(1), pages 1-26, April.
    20. Soriano-Hernández, P. & del Castillo-Mussot, M. & Campirán-Chávez, I. & Montemayor-Aldrete, J.A., 2017. "Wealth of the world’s richest publicly traded companies per industry and per employee: Gamma, Log-normal and Pareto power-law as universal distributions?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 471(C), pages 733-749.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:1112.2168. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.