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Race, gender and the econophysics of income distribution in the USA

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  • Shaikh, Anwar
  • Papanikolaou, Nikolaos
  • Wiener, Noe

Abstract

The econophysics “two-class” theory of Yakovenko and his co-authors shows that the distribution of labor incomes is roughly exponential. This paper extends this result to US subgroups categorized by gender and race. It is well known that Males have higher average incomes than Females, and Whites have higher average incomes than African-Americans. It is also evident that social policies can affect these income gaps. Our surprising finding is that nonetheless intra-group distributions of pre-tax labor incomes are remarkably similar and remain close to exponential. This suggests that income inequality can be usefully addressed by taxation policies, and overall income inequality can be modified by also shifting the balance between labor and property incomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Shaikh, Anwar & Papanikolaou, Nikolaos & Wiener, Noe, 2014. "Race, gender and the econophysics of income distribution in the USA," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 415(C), pages 54-60.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:415:y:2014:i:c:p:54-60
    DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2014.07.043
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Jeff Larrimore & Richard V. Burkhauser & Shuaizhang Feng & Laura Zayatz, 2008. "Consistent Cell Means for Topcoded Incomes in the Public Use March CPS (1976-2007)," NBER Working Papers 13941, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Ellis Scharfenaker, Markus P.A. Schneider, 2019. "Labor Market Segmentation and the Distribution of Income: New Evidence from Internal Census Bureau Data," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2019_08, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    2. Markus P. A. Schneider, 2018. "Revisiting the thermal and superthermal two-class distribution of incomes: A critical perspective," Papers 1804.06341, arXiv.org.
    3. Nikolaos Papanikolaou, 2020. "The Econophysics of Labor Income," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 107-122.
    4. Yong Tao & Xiangjun Wu & Tao Zhou & Weibo Yan & Yanyuxiang Huang & Han Yu & Benedict Mondal & Victor M. Yakovenko, 2019. "Exponential structure of income inequality: evidence from 67 countries," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 14(2), pages 345-376, June.
    5. 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.
    6. Kitov, Ivan & Kitov, Oleg, 2015. "Gender income disparity in the USA: analysis and dynamic modelling," MPRA Paper 67146, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Ellis Scharfenaker & Gregor Semieniuk, 2017. "A Statistical Equilibrium Approach to the Distribution of Profit Rates," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(3), pages 465-499, July.
    8. Shaikh, Anwar & Jacobo, Juan Esteban, 2020. "Economic Arbitrage and the Econophysics of Income Inequality," Review of Behavioral Economics, now publishers, vol. 7(4), pages 299–315-2, December.
    9. Igor D. S. Siciliani & Marcelo H. R. Tragtenberg, 2017. "Kinetic theory and Brazilian income distribution," Papers 1709.06480, arXiv.org.
    10. Hernández-Ramírez, E. & del Castillo-Mussot, M. & Hernández-Casildo, J., 2021. "World per capita gross domestic product measured nominally and across countries with purchasing power parity: Stretched exponential or Boltzmann–Gibbs distribution?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 568(C).
    11. Paulo dos Santos, 2016. "The Principle of Social Scaling," Working Papers 1606, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    12. Tao, Yong, 2021. "Boltzmann-like income distribution in low and middle income classes: Evidence from the United Kingdom," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 578(C).
    13. Anwar Shaikh & Amr Ragab, 2023. "Some universal patterns in income distribution: An econophysics approach," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(1), pages 248-264, February.
    14. Jaroonchokanan, Nawee & Termsaithong, Teerasit & Suwanna, Sujin, 2022. "Dynamics of hierarchical clustering in stocks market during financial crises," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 607(C).
    15. Tao, Yong & Wu, Xiangjun & Li, Changshuai, 2017. "Rawls' fairness, income distribution and alarming level of Gini coefficient," Economics Discussion Papers 2017-67, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    16. Soriano-Hernández, P. & del Castillo-Mussot, M. & Córdoba-Rodríguez, O. & Mansilla-Corona, R., 2017. "Non-stationary individual and household income of poor, rich and middle classes in Mexico," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 465(C), pages 403-413.
    17. Jangho Yang, 2018. "Information Theoretic Approaches In Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(3), pages 940-960, July.
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    19. Paulo L. dos Santos, 2017. "The Principle of Social Scaling," Complexity, Hindawi, vol. 2017, pages 1-9, December.
    20. Anwar Shaikh, 2017. "Income Distribution, Econophysics and Piketty," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 18-29, January.

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