IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v30y2016i1p185-206.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Power Laws in Economics: An Introduction

Author

Listed:
  • Xavier Gabaix

Abstract

Many of the insights of economics seem to be qualitative, with many fewer reliable quantitative laws. However a series of power laws in economics do count as true and nontrivial quantitative laws—and they are not only established empirically, but also understood theoretically. I will start by providing several illustrations of empirical power laws having to do with patterns involving cities, firms, and the stock market. I summarize some of the theoretical explanations that have been proposed. I suggest that power laws help us explain many economic phenomena, including aggregate economic fluctuations. I hope to clarify why power laws are so special, and to demonstrate their utility. In conclusion, I list some power-law-related economic enigmas that demand further exploration.

Suggested Citation

  • Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Power Laws in Economics: An Introduction," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 185-206, Winter.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:30:y:2016:i:1:p:185-206
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.30.1.185
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.30.1.185
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/jep/ds/3001/30010185_ds.zip
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/jep/data/3001/30010185_data.zip
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Levy, Moshe & Goldenberg, Jacob, 2014. "The gravitational law of social interaction," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 393(C), pages 418-426.
    2. Andrew T. Foerster & Pierre-Daniel G. Sarte & Mark W. Watson, 2011. "Sectoral versus Aggregate Shocks: A Structural Factor Analysis of Industrial Production," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 1-38.
    3. Bak, Per & Chen, Kan & Scheinkman, Jose & Woodford, Michael, 1993. "Aggregate fluctuations from independent sectoral shocks: self-organized criticality in a model of production and inventory dynamics," Ricerche Economiche, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 3-30, March.
    4. Jess Benhabib & Alberto Bisin & Shenghao Zhu, 2011. "The Distribution of Wealth and Fiscal Policy in Economies With Finitely Lived Agents," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(1), pages 123-157, January.
    5. Geoffrey B. West & James H. Brown & Brian J. Enquist, 1997. "A General Model for the Origin of Allometric Scaling Laws in Biology," Working Papers 97-03-019, Santa Fe Institute.
    6. Xavier Gabaix & Rustam Ibragimov, 2011. "Rank - 1 / 2: A Simple Way to Improve the OLS Estimation of Tail Exponents," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 24-39, January.
    7. Thomas Chaney, 2018. "The Gravity Equation in International Trade: An Explanation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 150-177.
    8. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    9. Charles I. Jones, 2005. "The Shape of Production Functions and the Direction of Technical Change," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(2), pages 517-549.
    10. Francois Geerolf, 2015. "A Static and Microfounded Theory of Zipf's Law for Firms and of the Top Labor Income Distribution," 2015 Meeting Papers 516, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Vasco M. Carvalho, 2014. "From Micro to Macro via Production Networks," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 28(4), pages 23-48, Fall.
    12. Robert E. Lucas Jr. & Benjamin Moll, 2014. "Knowledge Growth and the Allocation of Time," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(1), pages 1-51.
    13. Mary Amiti & David E. Weinstein, 2018. "How Much Do Idiosyncratic Bank Shocks Affect Investment? Evidence from Matched Bank-Firm Loan Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 525-587.
    14. Jensen, Michael C & Murphy, Kevin J, 1990. "Performance Pay and Top-Management Incentives," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(2), pages 225-264, April.
    15. Levy, Moshe, 2010. "Scale-free human migration and the geography of social networks," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(21), pages 4913-4917.
    16. Alexis Akira Toda & Kieran Walsh, 2015. "The Double Power Law in Consumption and Implications for Testing Euler Equations," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 123(5), pages 1177-1200.
    17. Anthony B. Atkinson & Thomas Piketty & Emmanuel Saez, 2011. "Top Incomes in the Long Run of History," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(1), pages 3-71, March.
    18. Robert J. Barro & Tao Jin, 2011. "On the Size Distribution of Macroeconomic Disasters," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1567-1589, September.
    19. V. Plerou & P. Gopikrishnan & L. A. N. Amaral & M. Meyer & H. E. Stanley, 1999. "Scaling of the distribution of price fluctuations of individual companies," Papers cond-mat/9907161, arXiv.org.
    20. Dongfeng Fu & Fabio Pammolli & S. V. Buldyrev & Massimo Riccaboni & Kaushik Matia & Kazuko Yamasaki & H. E. Stanley, 2005. "The Growth of Business Firms: Theoretical Framework and Empirical Evidence," Papers physics/0512005, arXiv.org.
    21. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    22. Krugman, Paul, 1996. "Confronting the Mystery of Urban Hierarchy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 399-418, December.
    23. Ioannides, Yannis M. & Overman, Henry G., 2003. "Zipf's law for cities: an empirical examination," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 127-137, March.
    24. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2015_025 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Bernard Herskovic & Bryan Kelly & Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, 2020. "Firm Volatility in Granular Networks," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(11), pages 4097-4162.
    26. Hernán D. Rozenfeld & Diego Rybski & Xavier Gabaix & Hernán A. Makse, 2011. "The Area and Population of Cities: New Insights from a Different Perspective on Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 2205-2225, August.
    27. Marko Tervio, 2008. "The Difference That CEOs Make: An Assignment Model Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 642-668, June.
    28. Joseph Persky, 1992. "Retrospectives: Pareto's Law," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 6(2), pages 181-192, Spring.
    29. Moshe Levy & Sorin Solomon, 1996. "Power Laws Are Logarithmic Boltzmann Laws," International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(04), pages 595-601.
    30. Mary Amiti & David E. Weinstein, 2013. "How much do bank shocks affect investment? Evidence from matched bank-firm loan data," Staff Reports 604, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    31. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/6k7m0q7h709rdrhbpm2n96irf8 is not listed on IDEAS
    32. Xavier Gabaix, 2012. "Variable Rare Disasters: An Exactly Solved Framework for Ten Puzzles in Macro-Finance," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 645-700.
    33. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    34. Julian di Giovanni & Andrei A. Levchenko, 2012. "Country Size, International Trade, and Aggregate Fluctuations in Granular Economies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(6), pages 1083-1132.
    35. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
    36. Solomon, Sorin & Richmond, Peter, 2001. "Power laws of wealth, market order volumes and market returns," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 299(1), pages 188-197.
    37. Vasco M. Carvalho, 2014. "From Micro to Macro via Production Networks," Working Papers 793, Barcelona School of Economics.
    38. Luis Garicano & Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, 2006. "Organization and Inequality in a Knowledge Economy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1383-1435.
    39. Nirei, Makoto, 2006. "Threshold behavior and aggregate fluctuation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 127(1), pages 309-322, March.
    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. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    2. Xavier Gabaix & Jean‐Michel Lasry & Pierre‐Louis Lions & Benjamin Moll, 2016. "The Dynamics of Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 2071-2111, November.
    3. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034.
    4. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    5. Xavier Gabaix, 2016. "Comment," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 30(1), pages 336-345.
    6. Piotr Gabrielczak & Tomasz Serwach, 2021. "Firm-Size Distribution in Poland: Is Power Law Applicable?," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 31-49.
    7. Piotr Gabrielczak & Tomasz Serwach, 2019. "Firm-size distribution in Poland – is power law applicable?," Lodz Economics Working Papers 3/2019, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology.
    8. Duranton, Gilles & Puga, Diego, 2014. "The Growth of Cities," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 5, pages 781-853, Elsevier.
    9. Erzo G. J. Luttmer, 2014. "An Assignment Model of Knowledge Diffusion and Income Inequality," Working Papers 715, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    10. Yukiko Saito & Makoto Nirei & Vasco Carvalho, 2014. "Supply Chain Disruptions: Evidence from Great East Japan Earthquake," 2014 Meeting Papers 595, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    11. Rafael González-Val, 2019. "US city-size distribution and space," Spatial Economic Analysis, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(3), pages 283-300, July.
    12. Behzod B. Ahundjanov & Sherzod B. Akhundjanov & Botir B. Okhunjanov, 2022. "Power law in COVID‐19 cases in China," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 185(2), pages 699-719, April.
    13. Arshad, Sidra & Hu, Shougeng & Ashraf, Badar Nadeem, 2019. "Zipf’s law, the coherence of the urban system and city size distribution: Evidence from Pakistan," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 513(C), pages 87-103.
    14. Ioannides, Yannis M. & Zhang, Junfu, 2017. "Walled cities in late imperial China," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 71-88.
    15. Mincheol Choi & Chang-Yang Lee, 2020. "Power-law distributions of corporate innovative output: evidence from U.S. patent data," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 122(1), pages 519-554, January.
    16. Carola Frydman & Dirk Jenter, 2010. "CEO Compensation," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 75-102, December.
    17. Rafael González‐Val, 2019. "Historical urban growth in Europe (1300–1800)," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 98(2), pages 1115-1136, April.
    18. Ernesto Pasten & Raphael S. Schoenle & Michael Weber & Michael Weber, 2017. "Price Rigidities and the Granular Origins of Aggregate Fluctuations," CESifo Working Paper Series 6619, CESifo.
    19. Einmahl, John & He, Y., 2020. "Unified Extreme Value Estimation for Heterogeneous Data," Other publications TiSEM dfe6c38c-823b-4394-b4fd-a, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    20. Zhihong Chen & Shihe Fu & Dayong Zhang, 2013. "Searching for the Parallel Growth of Cities in China," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(10), pages 2118-2135, August.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D01 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • L11 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Production, Pricing, and Market Structure; Size Distribution of Firms

    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:aea:jecper:v:30:y:2016:i:1:p:185-206. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.