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Evidence for the Independence of Waged and Unwaged Income, Evidence for Boltzmann Distributions in Waged Income, and the Outlines of a Coherent Theory of Income Distribution

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  • G. Willis
  • J. Mimkes

Abstract

Two sets of high quality income data are analysed in detail, one set from the UK, one from the USA. It is firstly demonstrated that both a log-normal distribution and a Boltzmann distribution can give very accurate fits to both these data sets. The absence of a power tail in the US data set is then discussed. Taken in conjunction with detailed evidence from the UK and Japanese income data, a strong case is made for the mathematically separate treatment of waged and unwaged income. The authors present a case for preferring the use of the Boltzmann distribution over the log-normal function, this leads to a brief review of the work of a number of researchers, which shows that a coherent theory for the distribution of all income can be postulated.

Suggested Citation

  • G. Willis & J. Mimkes, 2004. "Evidence for the Independence of Waged and Unwaged Income, Evidence for Boltzmann Distributions in Waged Income, and the Outlines of a Coherent Theory of Income Distribution," Papers cond-mat/0406694, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:cond-mat/0406694
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Jean-Philippe Bouchaud & Marc Mezard, 2000. "Wealth condensation in a simple model of economy," Science & Finance (CFM) working paper archive 500026, Science & Finance, Capital Fund Management.
    2. Wataru Souma, 2000. "Universal Structure of the Personal Income Distribution," Papers cond-mat/0011373, arXiv.org.
    3. Bouchaud, Jean-Philippe & Mézard, Marc, 2000. "Wealth condensation in a simple model of economy," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 282(3), pages 536-545.
    4. 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.
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    Cited by:

    1. N. J. Moura & M. B. Ribeiro, 2009. "Evidence for the Gompertz curve in the income distribution of Brazil 1978–2005," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 67(1), pages 101-120, January.
    2. Fabio Clementi & Mauro Gallegati, 2005. "Pareto's Law of Income Distribution: Evidence for Grermany, the United Kingdom, and the United States," Microeconomics 0505006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. F. Clementi & M. Gallegati & G. Kaniadakis, 2007. "κ-generalized statistics in personal income distribution," The European Physical Journal B: Condensed Matter and Complex Systems, Springer;EDP Sciences, vol. 57(2), pages 187-193, May.
    4. Arnab Chatterjee & Bikas K Chakrabarti, 2005. "Ideal-Gas Like Markets: Effect of Savings," Papers physics/0507136, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2005.
    5. Geoff Willis, 2004. "Laser Welfare: First Steps in Econodynamic Engineering," Microeconomics 0408003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Chakrabarti, Anindya S. & Chakrabarti, Bikas K., 2010. "Statistical theories of income and wealth distribution," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 4, pages 1-31.
    7. Bourguignon, Marcelo & Saulo, Helton & Fernandez, Rodrigo Nobre, 2016. "A new Pareto-type distribution with applications in reliability and income data," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 457(C), pages 166-175.
    8. Venkat Venkatasubramanian, 2010. "What is Fair Pay for Executives? An Information Theoretic Analysis of Wage Distributions," Papers 1002.2269, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

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