IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jcsosc/v1y2018i2d10.1007_s42001-018-0019-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Hierarchy and the power-law income distribution tail

Author

Listed:
  • Blair Fix

    (York University)

Abstract

What explains the power-law distribution of top incomes? This paper tests the hypothesis that it is firm hierarchy that creates the power-law income distribution tail. Using the available case-study evidence on firm hierarchy, I create the first large-scale simulation of the hierarchical structure of the US private sector. Although not tuned to do so, this model reproduces the power-law scaling of top US incomes. I show that this is purely an effect of firm hierarchy. This raises the possibility that the ubiquity of power-law income distribution tails is due to the ubiquity of hierarchical organization in human societies.

Suggested Citation

  • Blair Fix, 2018. "Hierarchy and the power-law income distribution tail," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 471-491, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jcsosc:v:1:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s42001-018-0019-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s42001-018-0019-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s42001-018-0019-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s42001-018-0019-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xavier Gabaix & Jean‐Michel Lasry & Pierre‐Louis Lions & Benjamin Moll, 2016. "The Dynamics of Inequality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 2071-2111, November.
    2. A. B. Atkinson, 2017. "Pareto and the Upper Tail of the Income Distribution in the UK: 1799 to the Present," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(334), pages 129-156, April.
    3. Thomas J. Dohmen & Ben Kriechel & Gerard A. Pfann, 2004. "Monkey bars and ladders: The importance of lateral and vertical job mobility in internal labor market careers," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 17(2), pages 193-228, June.
    4. Drăgulescu, Adrian & Yakovenko, Victor M., 2001. "Exponential and power-law probability distributions of wealth and income in the United Kingdom and the United States," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 299(1), pages 213-221.
    5. Nitzan, Jonathan & Bichler, Shimshon, 2009. "Capital as Power. A Study of Order and Creorder," EconStor Books, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 157973, March.
    6. Raghuram G. Rajan & Julie Wulf, 2006. "The Flattening Firm: Evidence from Panel Data on the Changing Nature of Corporate Hierarchies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 759-773, November.
    7. Jonathan S. Leonard, 1990. "Executive Pay and Firm Performance," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 43(3), pages 13, April.
    8. Ivan O. Kitov, 2009. "Mechanical Model of Personal Income Distribution," Papers 0903.0203, arXiv.org.
    9. Angle, John, 2006. "The Inequality Process as a wealth maximizing process," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 367(C), pages 388-414.
    10. Eriksson, Tor, 1999. "Executive Compensation and Tournament Theory: Empirical Tests on Danish Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 17(2), pages 262-280, April.
    11. Ariga, Kenn & Brunello, Giorgio & Ohkusa, Yasushi & Nishiyama, Yoshihiko, 1992. "Corporate hierarchy, promotion, and firm growth: Japanese internal labor market in transition," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 440-471, December.
    12. Fix, Blair, 2017. "Energy and Institution Size," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 12(2), pages 1-22.
    13. David R. Roberts, 1956. "A General Theory of Executive Compensation Based on Statistically Tested Propositions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 70(2), pages 270-294.
    14. Hideaki Aoyama & Yuichi Nagahara & Mitsuhiro P. Okazaki & Wataru Souma & Hideki Takayasu & Misako Takayasu, 2000. "Pareto's Law for Income of Individuals and Debt of Bankrupt Companies," Papers cond-mat/0006038, arXiv.org.
    15. Nirei, Makoto & 楡井, 誠, 2009. "Pareto Distributions in Economic Growth Models," IIR Working Paper 09-05, Institute of Innovation Research, Hitotsubashi University.
    16. Pianegonda, S & Iglesias, J.R & Abramson, G & Vega, J.L, 2003. "Wealth redistribution with conservative exchanges," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 322(C), pages 667-675.
    17. James T. Peach, 1987. "Distribution and Economic Progress," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(4), pages 1495-1529, September.
    18. Baker, George & Gibbs, Michael & Holmstrom, Bengt, 1993. "Hierarchies and compensation: A case study," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 366-378, April.
    19. Main, Brian G M & O'Reilly, Charles A, III & Wade, James, 1993. "Top Executive Pay: Tournament or Teamwork?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 11(4), pages 606-628, October.
    20. Treble, John & van Gameren, Edwin & Bridges, Sarah & Barmby, Tim, 2001. "The internal economics of the firm: further evidence from personnel data," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(5), pages 531-552, December.
    21. Christopher Brown, 2005. "Is There an Institutional Theory of Distribution?," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 915-931, December.
    22. Clementi, F. & Gallegati, M., 2005. "Power law tails in the Italian personal income distribution," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 350(2), pages 427-438.
    23. A. Chatterjee & B. K. Chakrabarti, 2007. "Kinetic exchange models for income and wealth distributions," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 60(2), pages 135-149, November.
    24. Gaffeo, Edoardo & Gallegati, Mauro & Palestrini, Antonio, 2003. "On the size distribution of firms: additional evidence from the G7 countries," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 324(1), pages 117-123.
    25. Fredrik Heyman, 2005. "Pay inequality and firm performance: evidence from matched employer-employee data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(11), pages 1313-1327.
    26. Hegyi, Géza & Néda, Zoltán & Augusta Santos, Maria, 2007. "Wealth distribution and Pareto's law in the Hungarian medieval society," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 380(C), pages 271-277.
    27. Arnab Chatterjee & Bikas K. Chakrabarti, 2007. "Kinetic Exchange Models for Income and Wealth Distributions," Papers 0709.1543, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2007.
    28. Coelho, Ricardo & Richmond, Peter & Barry, Joseph & Hutzler, Stefan, 2008. "Double power laws in income and wealth distributions," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 387(15), pages 3847-3851.
    29. Blair Fix, 2017. "Energy and institution size," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(2), pages 1-22, February.
    30. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:15:y:2003:i:6:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Rick Audas & Tim Barmby & John Treble, 2004. "Luck, Effort, and Reward in an Organizational Hierarchy," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 379-396, April.
    32. Toda, Alexis Akira, 2012. "The double power law in income distribution: Explanations and evidence," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 364-381.
    33. Makoto Nirei & Wataru Souma, 2007. "A Two Factor Model Of Income Distribution Dynamics," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 53(3), pages 440-459, September.
    34. Victor M. Yakovenko & J. Barkley Rosser, 2009. "Colloquium: Statistical mechanics of money, wealth, and income," Papers 0905.1518, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2009.
    35. Corrado Di Guilmi & Mauro Gallegati & Edoardo Gaffeo, 2003. "Power Law Scaling in the World Income Distribution," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 15(6), pages 1-7.
    36. Hung-Lin Tao & I-Ting Chen, 2009. "The level of technology employed and the internal hierarchical wage structure," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(7), pages 739-744.
    37. A. Christian Silva & Victor M. Yakovenko, 2004. "Temporal evolution of the "thermal" and "superthermal" income classes in the USA during 1983-2001," Papers cond-mat/0406385, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2004.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fix, Blair, 2020. "Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2020/01, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    2. Fix, Blair, 2020. "Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market," SocArXiv g86am, Center for Open Science.
    3. Blair Fix, 2022. "Economic development and the death of the free market," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-46, April.
    4. Fix, Blair, 2021. "Redistributing Income Through Hierarchy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 98, pages 58-86.
    5. Blair Fix, 2019. "Energy, hierarchy and the origin of inequality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-32, April.
    6. Blair Fix, 2021. "How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 403-454, November.
    7. Fix, Blair, 2021. "The Rise of Human Capital Theory," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 95, pages 29-41.
    8. Fix, Blair, 2019. "Energy, Hierarchy and the Origin of Inequality," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(4, April), pages 1-32.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fix, Blair, 2018. "The growth of US top income inequality: A hierarchical redistribution hypothesis," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2018/05, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    2. Fix, Blair, 2018. "The Growth of US Top Income Inequality: A Hierarchical Redistribution Hypothesis," SocArXiv suqnk, Center for Open Science.
    3. Blair Fix, 2022. "Economic development and the death of the free market," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 1-46, April.
    4. Fix, Blair, 2017. "Evidence for a Power Theory of Personal Income Distribution," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2017/03, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    5. Fix, Blair, 2020. "Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market," SocArXiv g86am, Center for Open Science.
    6. Fix, Blair, 2020. "Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2020/01, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    7. Fix, Blair, 2017. "Evidence for a Power Theory of Personal Income Distribution," SocArXiv qgwus, Center for Open Science.
    8. Fix, Blair, 2018. "Capitalist income and hierarchical power: A gradient hypothesis," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2018/06, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    9. Fix, Blair, 2018. "Capitalist Income and Hierarchical Power," SocArXiv u8epv, Center for Open Science.
    10. Fix, Blair, 2021. "Redistributing Income Through Hierarchy," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue 98, pages 58-86.
    11. Fix, Blair, 2021. "Living the good life in a non-growth world: Investigating the role of hierarchy," SocArXiv wem9p, Center for Open Science.
    12. Fix, Blair, 2021. "Living the Good Life in a Non-Growth World. Investigating the Role of Hierarchy," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2021/02, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    13. Fix, Blair, 2019. "Personal Income and Hierarchical Power," SocArXiv pb475, Center for Open Science.
    14. Blair Fix, 2019. "Energy, hierarchy and the origin of inequality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(4), pages 1-32, April.
    15. Fix, Blair, 2019. "Energy, Hierarchy and the Origin of Inequality," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 14(4, April), pages 1-32.
    16. Blair Fix, 2021. "How the rich are different: hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 403-454, November.
    17. Fix, Blair, 2019. "How the rich are different: Hierarchical power as the basis of income and class," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2019/02, Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    18. Fix, Blair, 2019. "How the Rich Are Different: Hierarchical Power as the Basis of Income Size and Class," SocArXiv t8muy, Center for Open Science.
    19. Fix, Blair, 2019. "How the rich are different: Hierarchical power as the basis of income size and class," Working Papers on Capital as Power 2019/02 (v.2), Capital As Power - Toward a New Cosmology of Capitalism.
    20. Max Greenberg & H. Oliver Gao, 2024. "Twenty-five years of random asset exchange modeling," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 97(6), pages 1-27, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jcsosc:v:1:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s42001-018-0019-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.