The theory of functional equations is used to clarify the relationship between equilibrium distributions of wealth and population parameters such as the distribution of families by size, marriage patterns, tax mechanisms and savings behaviour within a simple model of inheritance.

We discuss moving-maximum models, based on weighted maxima of independent random variables, for extreme values from a time series. The models encompass a range of stochastic processes that are of interest in the context of extreme-value data. We show that a stationary stochastic process whose...

This paper assesses the empirical validity of Zipf¿s Law for cities, using new data on 73 countries and two estimation methods ¿ OLS and the Hill estimator. With either estimator, we reject Zipf¿s Law far more often than we would expect based on random chance; for 53 out of 73 countries using...