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...

In this paper we tackle the problem of estimating the power-law tail exponent of income distributions by using the Hill's estimator. A subsample semi-parametric bootstrap procedure minimizing the mean squared error is used to choose the power-law cutoff value optimally. This technique is applied...

Following Aoki’s statistical mechanics methodology [Masanao Aoki, New Approaches to Macroeconomic Modeling, Cambridge University Press, 1996; Masanao Aoki, Modeling Aggregate Behaviour and Fluctuations in Economics, Cambridge University Press, 2002; Masanao Aoki, and Hiroshi Yoshikawa, Reconstructing...

In this paper we sketch some reflections on the pitfalls and inconsistencies of the research program—currently dominant among the profession—aimed at providing microfoundations to macroeconomics along a Walrasian perspective. We argue that such a methodological approach constitutes an...

This paper proposes the κ-generalized distribution as a model for describing the distribution and dispersion of income within a population. Formulas for the shape, moments and standard tools for inequality measurement–such as the Lorenz curve and the Gini coefficient–are given. A method for...

Self-similar models are largely used to describe the extinction rate of biological species. In this paper we analyse the extinction rate of firms in eight OECD countries. Firms are classified by industrial sectors and sizes. We find that while a power-law distribution with exponent close to 2...

A firms growth and failure are the two sides of the same coin. This paper reports new phenomenological findings for firm size distribution and growth, and bankruptcy. This paper is based on [Y. Fujiwara et al., Physica A 335 (2004) 197] and on [Y. Fujiwara, Physica A 337 (2004) 219]. See also...

Some agent-based models for growth and allocation of resources are described. The first class considered consists of conservative models, where the number of agents and the size of resources are constant during time evolution. The second class is made up of multiplicative noise models and some...

By employing exhaustive lists of large firms in European countries, we show that the upper-tail of the distribution of firm size can be fitted with a power-law (Pareto–Zipf law), and that in this region the growth rate of each firm is independent of the firm's size (Gibrat's law of...

We study the duration distribution of recessions and recoveries occurred in a pool of industrialized countries during the last 120 years. We find that for recessions the duration is distributed according to a power law, and that the power exponent is virtually invariant as we split up the time...