Spierdijk, Laura (Dept. of Econometrics, University of Groningen) Voorneveld, Mark () (Dept. of Economics, Stockholm School of Economics)
Abstract
Chung and Cox (1994) provided an intuitively appealing stochastic model which indicates that superstars may exist regardless of talent and which gives rise to the Yule distribution. We adopt a different empirical approach and test its goodness-of-fit using a parametric bootstrap and several powerful test statistics. Just like the discrete Pareto distribution, it is overwhelmingly rejected: it is a fairly accurate approximation of the lower quantiles of the superstar distribution, but overestimates the snowball effect that makes consumers purchase records of the most successful artists. In other words, the Yule distribution captures stardom, but not superstardom. A generalization of the Yule distribution provides an excellent fit in two of the three data sets.
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Length: 17 pages Date of creation: 25 Apr 2007 Date of revision:
09 May 2007 Handle: RePEc:hhs:hastef:0658
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Find related papers by JEL classification: J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials L82 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Entertainment; Media Z11 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economics of the Arts and Literature
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