Wright, Ian - In: Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 345 (2005) 3, pp. 608-610
Ormerod and Mounfield (Physica A 293 (2001) 573) analyse GDP data of 17 leading capitalist economies from 1870 to 1994 and conclude that the frequency of the duration of recessions is consistent with a power law. But in fact the data is consistent with an exponential (Boltzmann–Gibbs) law.