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Theory of Zipf's Law and of General Power Law Distributions with Gibrat's law of Proportional Growth

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  • A. Saichev
  • Y. Malevergne
  • D. Sornette

Abstract

We summarize a book under publication with his title written by the three present authors, on the theory of Zipf's law, and more generally of power laws, driven by the mechanism of proportional growth. The preprint is available upon request from the authors. For clarity, consistence of language and conciseness, we discuss the origin and conditions of the validity of Zipf's law using the terminology of firms' asset values. We use firms at the entities whose size distributions are to be explained. It should be noted, however, that most of the relations discussed in this book, especially the intimate connection between Zipf's and Gilbrat's laws, underlie Zipf's law in diverse scientific areas. The same models and variations thereof can be straightforwardly applied to any of the other domains of application.

Suggested Citation

  • A. Saichev & Y. Malevergne & D. Sornette, 2008. "Theory of Zipf's Law and of General Power Law Distributions with Gibrat's law of Proportional Growth," Papers 0808.1828, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:0808.1828
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Fujiwara, Yoshi & Aoyama, Hideaki & Di Guilmi, Corrado & Souma, Wataru & Gallegati, Mauro, 2004. "Gibrat and Pareto–Zipf revisited with European firms," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 344(1), pages 112-116.
    2. Gabaix, Xavier & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2004. "The evolution of city size distributions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 53, pages 2341-2378, Elsevier.
    3. Moshe Levy & Sorin Solomon, 1996. "Power Laws Are Logarithmic Boltzmann Laws," International Journal of Modern Physics C (IJMPC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(04), pages 595-601.
    4. 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.
    5. Fujiwara, Yoshi & Di Guilmi, Corrado & Aoyama, Hideaki & Gallegati, Mauro & Souma, Wataru, 2004. "Do Pareto–Zipf and Gibrat laws hold true? An analysis with European firms," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 335(1), pages 197-216.
    6. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
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    Cited by:

    1. G. A. Kohring, 2009. "Complex Dependencies In Large Software Systems," Advances in Complex Systems (ACS), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 12(06), pages 565-581.
    2. Petra Štamfestová & Lukáš Sobíšek & Jiří Hnilica, 2023. "Firm Size Distribution in the Central European Context," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2023(5), pages 151-175.
    3. Montebruno, Piero & Bennett, Robert J. & van Lieshout, Carry & Smith, Harry, 2019. "A tale of two tails: Do Power Law and Lognormal models fit firm-size distributions in the mid-Victorian era?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 523(C), pages 858-875.
    4. M Ángeles Serrano & Alessandro Flammini & Filippo Menczer, 2009. "Modeling Statistical Properties of Written Text," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(4), pages 1-8, April.
    5. Domingo Docampo & Lawrence Cram, 2017. "Academic performance and institutional resources: a cross-country analysis of research universities," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(2), pages 739-764, February.

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