Evolutionary model of the growth and size of firms

The key idea of this model is that firms are the result of an evolutionary process. Based on demand and supply considerations the evolutionary model presented here derives explicitly Gibrat’s law of proportionate effects as the result of the competition between products. Applying a preferential attachment mechanism for firms, the theory allows to establish the size distribution of products and firms. Also established are the growth rate and price distribution of consumer goods. Taking into account the characteristic property of human activities to occur in bursts, the model allows also an explanation of the size–variance relationship of the growth rate distribution of products and firms. Further the product life cycle, the learning (experience) curve and the market size in terms of the mean number of firms that can survive in a market are derived. The model also suggests the existence of an invariant of a market as the ratio of total profit to total revenue. The relationship between a neo-classic and an evolutionary view of a market is discussed. The comparison with empirical investigations suggests that the theory is able to describe the main stylized facts concerning the size and growth of firms.     

Effects of the turnover rate on the size distribution of firms: An application of the kinetic exchange models

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. There are three 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 exact results on the distributions which are not known yet for binary interactions. Our model easily reproduces the power law for the size distribution of firms (Zipf’s law). The fluctuations in the growth rate falls with increasing size following a power law (though the exponent does not match with the data). 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 of sizes has the same distribution.     

The Gompertz-Pareto income distribution

This work analyzes the Gompertz-Pareto distribution (GPD) of personal income, formed by the combination of the Gompertz curve, representing the overwhelming majority of the economically less favorable part of the population of a country, and the Pareto power law, which describes its tiny richest part. Equations for the Lorenz curve, Gini coefficient and the percentage share of the Gompertzian part relative to the total income are all written in this distribution. We show that only three parameters, determined by linear data fitting, are required for its complete characterization. Consistency checks are carried out using income data of Brazil from 1981 to 2007 and they lead to the conclusion that the GPD is consistent and provides a coherent and simple analytical tool to describe personal income distribution data.     

Econophysics and the Entropic Foundations of Economics

This paper examines relations between econophysics and the law of entropy as foundations of economic phenomena. Ontological entropy, where actual thermodynamic processes are involved in the flow of energy from the Sun through the biosphere and economy, is distinguished from metaphorical entropy, where similar mathematics used for modeling entropy is employed to model economic phenomena. Areas considered include general equilibrium theory, growth theory, business cycles, ecological economics, urban–regional economics, income and wealth distribution, and financial market dynamics. The power-law distributions studied by econophysicists can reflect anti-entropic forces is emphasized to show how entropic and anti-entropic forces can interact to drive economic dynamics, such as in the interaction between business cycles, financial markets, and income distributions.     

Power law tails in the Italian personal income distribution

We investigate the shape of the Italian personal income distribution using microdata from the Survey on Household Income and Wealth, made publicly available by the Bank of Italy for the years 1977–2002. We find that the upper tail of the distribution is consistent with a Pareto-power law type distribution, while the rest follows a two-parameter lognormal distribution. The results of our analysis show a shift of the distribution and a change of the indexes specifying it over time. As regards the first issue, we test the hypothesis that the evolution of both gross domestic product and personal income is governed by similar mechanisms, pointing to the existence of correlation between these quantities. The fluctuations of the shape of income distribution are instead quantified by establishing some links with the business cycle phases experienced by the Italian economy over the years covered by our dataset.     

An equilibrium-conserving taxation scheme for income from capital

Under conditions of market equilibrium, the distribution of capital income follows a Pareto power law, with an exponent that characterizes the given equilibrium. Here, a simple taxation scheme is proposed such that the post-tax capital income distribution remains an equilibrium distribution, albeit with a different exponent. This taxation scheme is shown to be progressive, and its parameters can be simply derived from (i) the total amount of tax that will be levied, (ii) the threshold selected above which capital income will be taxed and (iii) the total amount of capital income. The latter can be obtained either by using Piketty’s estimates of the capital/labor income ratio or by fitting the initial Pareto exponent. Both ways moreover provide a check on the amount of declared income from capital.     

Continuous time random walk with jump length correlated with waiting time

A coupled continuous time random walk (CTRW) model is proposed, in which the jump length of a walker is correlated with waiting time. The power law distribution is chosen as the probability density function of waiting time and the Gaussian-like distribution as the probability density function of jump length. Normal diffusion, subdiffusion and superdiffusion can be realized within the present model. It is shown that the competition between long-tailed distribution and correlation of jump length and waiting time will lead to different diffusive behavior.     

Evidence for the Gompertz curve in the income distribution of Brazil 1978–2005

This work presents an empirical study of the evolution of the personal income distribution in Brazil. Yearly samples available from 1978 to 2005 were studied and evidence was found that the complementary cumulative distribution of personal income for 99% of the economically less favorable population is well represented by a Gompertz curve of the form G(x) = exp [exp (A-Bx)], where x is the normalized individual income. The complementary cumulative distribution of the remaining 1% richest part of the population is well represented by a Pareto power law distribution P(x) = βx^-α. This result means that similarly to other countries, Brazil’s income distribution is characterized by a well defined two class system. The parameters A, B, α, β were determined by a mixture of boundary conditions, normalization and fitting methods for every year in the time span of this study. Since the Gompertz curve is characteristic of growth models, its presence here suggests that these patterns in income distribution could be a consequence of the growth dynamics of the underlying economic system. In addition, we found out that the percentage share of both the Gompertzian and Paretian components relative to the total income shows an approximate cycling pattern with periods of about 4 years and whose maximum and minimum peaks in each component alternate at about every 2 years. This finding suggests that the growth dynamics of Brazil’s economic system might possibly follow a Goodwin-type class model dynamics based on the application of the Lotka-Volterra equation to economic growth and cycle.     

A mechanism to derive multi-power law functions: An application in the econophysics framework

It is generally recognized that economical systems, and more in general complex systems, are characterized by power law distributions. Sometime, these distributions show a changing of the slope in the tail so that, more appropriately, they show a multi-power law behavior. We present a method to derive analytically a two-power law distribution starting from a single power law function recently obtained, in the frameworks of the generalized statistical mechanics based on the Sharma-Taneja-Mittal information measure. In order to test the method, we fit the cumulative distribution of personal income and gross domestic production of several countries, obtaining a good agreement for a wide range of data.     

Victory Tax: A Holistic Income Tax System

How can an income tax system be designed to exploit human nature and a free market to create a poverty free society, while balancing budgets without disproportional tax burdens? Such a tax system, with universal character, is deduced from the following guiding principles: (1) a single tax rate applies to all income types and levels; (2) the tax rate adjusts to satisfy budget projections; (3) government transfer only supplements the income of households with self-generated income below the poverty line; (4) deductions for basic living expenses, itemized investments and capital losses are allowed; (5) deductions cannot be applied to government transfer. A general framework emerges with three parameters that determine a minimum allowed tax deduction, a maximum allowed itemized deduction, and a maximum deduction defined by income percentage. An income distribution that mimics the United States, and a series of log-normal distributions are considered to quantitatively compare detailed characteristics of this tax system to progressive and flat tax systems. To minimize government dependency while maximizing after-tax income, the effective tax rate (ETR) as a function of income percentile takes the shape of the letter, V, inspiring the name victory tax, where the middle class has the lowest ETR.     

基于选择模式的幂律生成机制

自然界与社会生活中存在多种性质迥异的幂律分布现象,因而对它们的研究具有广泛而深远的意义．研究了一类由于人类的选择行为而产生的幂律现象,提出了人类选择行为的两个特性：理性与自利．据此,通过小球选择试验构建了模型．研究发现,这类幂律现象中随机变量服从一种近似于Zipf分布的分布．此分布为首次提出的一种新分布,将它命名为偏序分布．网络中已有的统计数据表明,偏序分布比Zipf分布更真实的反应了网络中统计变量服从的分布．文中对偏序分布进行了理论分析,并通过约束条件的改变,生成了Yule分布;表述了Yule分布的物理意义,并构造了比Yule分布更具现实意义的分布．说明了选择理论在解释幂律现象方面的普遍适用性及模型的可扩展性．文中在幂律现象的成因上支持还原论,即简单的人类选择行为导致了普遍的幂律现象． 关键词： 选择行为 幂律分布 偏序分布 Yule分布     

Income distribution patterns from a complete social security database

We analyze the income distribution of employees for 9 consecutive years (2001–2009) using a complete social security database for an economically important district of Romania. The database contains detailed information on more than half million taxpayers, including their monthly salaries from all employers where they worked. Besides studying the characteristic distribution functions in the high and low/medium income limits, the database allows us a detailed dynamical study by following the time-evolution of the taxpayers income. To our knowledge, this is the first extensive study of this kind (a previous Japanese taxpayers survey was limited to two years). In the high income limit we prove once again the validity of Pareto’s law, obtaining a perfect scaling on four orders of magnitude in the rank for all the studied years. The obtained Pareto exponents are quite stable with values around α≈2.5$\alpha \approx 2.5$, in spite of the fact that during this period the economy developed rapidly and also a financial-economic crisis hit Romania in 2007–2008. For the low and medium income category we confirmed the exponential-type income distribution. Following the income of employees in time, we have found that the top limit of the income distribution is a highly dynamical region with strong fluctuations in the rank. In this region, the observed dynamics is consistent with a multiplicative random growth hypothesis. Contrarily with previous results obtained for the Japanese employees, we find that the logarithmic growth-rate is not independent of the income.     

On the upper tail of Italian firms’ size distribution

In this paper we analyze the upper tail of the size distribution of Italian companies with limited liability belonging to the CEBI database. Size is defined in terms of net worth.In particular, we show that the largest firms follow a power law distribution, according to the well-known Pareto law, for which we give estimates of the shape parameter. Such a behavior seems to be quite persistent over time, view that for almost 20 years of observations, the shape parameter is always in the vicinity of 1.8.The power law hypothesis is also positively tested using graphical and analytical methods.     

用三个分布律整合气体动理论的教学

用麦克斯韦速度分布律、玻耳兹曼分布律、自由程分布律整合了气体动理论的教学．     

The uniqueness of firm size distribution function from tent-shaped growth rate distribution

Employing profits data of Japanese firms in 2003 and 2004, we report the proof that a Non-Gibrat's law in the middle scale region of profits is unique under the law of detailed balance. This uniquely leads to the probability distribution function (pdf) of profits. In the proof, two approximations are employed. The pdf of growth rate is described as tent-shaped exponential functions and the value of the origin of the growth rate distribution is constant. These approximations are confirmed in the database. The resultant profits pdf fits with the empirical data consistently. This guarantees the validity of the approximations.     

Changes of firm size distribution: The case of Korea

In this paper, the distribution and inequality of firm sizes is evaluated for the Korean firms listed on the stock markets. Using the amount of sales, total assets, capital, and the number of employees, respectively, as a proxy for firm sizes, we find that the upper tail of the Korean firm size distribution can be described by power-law distributions rather than lognormal distributions. Then, we estimate the Zipf parameters of the firm sizes and assess the changes in the magnitude of the exponents. The results show that the calculated Zipf exponents over time increased prior to the financial crisis, but decreased after the crisis. This pattern implies that the degree of inequality in Korean firm sizes had severely deepened prior to the crisis, but lessened after the crisis. Overall, the distribution of Korean firm sizes changes over time, and Zipf’s law is not universal but does hold as a special case.     

Emergence of power-law in a market with mixed models

We investigate the problem of wealth distribution from the viewpoint of asset exchange. Robust nature of Pareto's law across economies, ideologies and nations suggests that this could be an outcome of trading strategies. However, the simple asset exchange models fail to reproduce this feature. A Yardsale (YS) model in which amount put on the bet is a fraction of minimum of the two players leads to condensation of wealth in hands of some agent while theft and fraud (TF) model in which the amount to be exchanged is a fraction of loser's wealth leads to an exponential distribution of wealth. We show that if we allow few agents to follow a different model than others, i.e., there are some agents following TF model while rest follow YS model, it leads to distribution with power-law tails. Similar effect is observed when one carries out transactions for a fraction of one's wealth using TF model and for the rest YS model is used. We also observe a power-law tail in wealth distribution if we allow the agents to follow either of the models with some probability.     

An analysis of the size distribution of Italian firms by age

In this paper we analyze the size distribution of Italian firms by age. In other words, we want to establish whether the way that the size of firms is distributed varies as firms become old. As a proxy of size we use capital. In [L.M.B. Cabral, J. Mata, On the evolution of the firm size distribution: Facts and theory, American Economic Review 93 (2003) 1075–1090], the authors study the distribution of Portuguese firms and they find out that, while the size distribution of all firms is fairly stable over time, the distributions of firms by age groups are appreciably different. In particular, as the age of the firms increases, their size distribution on the log scale shifts to the right, the left tails becomes thinner and the right tail thicker, with a clear decrease of the skewness. In this paper, we perform a similar analysis with Italian firms using the CEBI database, also considering firms’ growth rates. Although there are several papers dealing with Italian firms and their size distribution, to our knowledge a similar study concerning size and age has not been performed yet for Italy, especially with such a big panel.     

Testing the Goodwin growth-cycle macroeconomic dynamics in Brazil

This paper discusses the empirical validity of Goodwin’s (1967) macroeconomic model of growth with cycles by assuming that the individual income distribution of the Brazilian society is described by the Gompertz–Pareto distribution (GPD). This is formed by the combination of the Gompertz curve, representing the overwhelming majority of the population (∼99%), with the Pareto power law, representing the tiny richest part (∼1%). In line with Goodwin’s original model, we identify the Gompertzian part with the workers and the Paretian component with the class of capitalists. Since the GPD parameters are obtained for each year and the Goodwin macroeconomics is a time evolving model, we use previously determined, and further extended here, Brazilian GPD parameters, as well as unemployment data, to study the time evolution of these quantities in Brazil from 1981 to 2009 by means of the Goodwin dynamics. This is done in the original Goodwin model and an extension advanced by Desai et al. (2006). As far as Brazilian data is concerned, our results show partial qualitative and quantitative agreement with both models in the studied time period, although the original one provides better data fit. Nevertheless, both models fall short of a good empirical agreement as they predict single center cycles which were not found in the data. We discuss the specific points where the Goodwin dynamics must be improved in order to provide a more realistic representation of the dynamics of economic systems.