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On the Irreconcilability of Pareto and Gibrat Laws

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  • Giulio Bottazzi

Abstract

If business firms face a multiplicative growth process in which their growth rates are independent from their sizes, then these sizes cannot be distributed according to a stationary Pareto distribution. At the same time , the Laplace distribution of growth rates cannot be easily reconciled with a Pareto distribution of firm sizes. Recent contributions, using formal arguments, seems to contrast these statements. We prove that the proposed formal results are wrong.

Suggested Citation

  • Giulio Bottazzi, 2007. "On the Irreconcilability of Pareto and Gibrat Laws," LEM Papers Series 2007/10, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2007/10
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Hernan Mondani & Petter Holme & Fredrik Liljeros, 2014. "Fat-Tailed Fluctuations in the Size of Organizations: The Role of Social Influence," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-9, July.
    2. Davide Provenzano, 2017. "On the World Distribution of Income," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 63(1), pages 189-196, March.
    3. Ishikawa, Atushi, 2007. "The uniqueness of firm size distribution function from tent-shaped growth rate distribution," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 383(1), pages 79-84.
    4. Junho Na & Jeong-dong Lee & Chulwoo Baek, 2017. "Is the service sector different in size heterogeneity?," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 12(1), pages 95-120, April.
    5. Cirillo, Pasquale, 2010. "An analysis of the size distribution of Italian firms by age," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(3), pages 459-466.
    6. Xu, Yan & Wang, Yougui & Tao, Xiaobo & Ližbetinová, Lenka, 2017. "Evidence of Chinese income dynamics and its effects on income scaling law," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 487(C), pages 143-152.

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