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The impact of randomness on the distribution of wealth: Some economic aspects of the Wright-Fisher diffusion process

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  • Nicolas Bouleau

    (CIRED - centre international de recherche sur l'environnement et le développement - Cirad - Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - AgroParisTech - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

  • Christophe Chorro

    (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

In this paper we consider some elementary and fair zero-sum games of chance to study the impact of random effects on the wealth distribution of N interacting players. Even if an exhaustive analytical study of such games between many players may be tricky, numerical experiments highlight interesting asymptotic properties, in particular, we underscore that randomness plays a key role in concentrating the wealth to the extreme with a single player. From a mathematical perspective, we interestingly recover for small and high-frequency transactions some diffusion limits extensively used in population genetics. Finally, the impact of small tax rates on the preceding dynamics is discussed for several regulation mechanisms. We show that taxation of income is not sufficient to overcome the externe concentration process contrary to a uniform taxation of capital that stabilizes the economy preventing agents to be ruined.

Suggested Citation

  • Nicolas Bouleau & Christophe Chorro, 2015. "The impact of randomness on the distribution of wealth: Some economic aspects of the Wright-Fisher diffusion process," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01162452, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-01162452
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-01162452v2
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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. Guess, Harry A., 1973. "On the weak convergence of Wright-Fisher model," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 287-306, July.
    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. James B. McDonald, 2008. "Some Generalized Functions for the Size Distribution of Income," Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being, in: Duangkamon Chotikapanich (ed.), Modeling Income Distributions and Lorenz Curves, chapter 3, pages 37-55, Springer.
    5. James B. McDonald & Michael Ransom, 2008. "The Generalized Beta Distribution as a Model for the Distribution of Income: Estimation of Related Measures of Inequality," Economic Studies in Inequality, Social Exclusion, and Well-Being, in: Duangkamon Chotikapanich (ed.), Modeling Income Distributions and Lorenz Curves, chapter 8, pages 147-166, Springer.
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    Cited by:

    1. Christophe Chorro, 2015. "A Simple Probabilistic Approach of the Yard-Sale Model," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 15062, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    2. Christophe Chorro, 2015. "A Simple Probabilistic Approach of the Yard-Sale Model," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01222500, HAL.
    3. Chorro, Christophe, 2016. "A simple probabilistic approach of the Yard-Sale model," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 35-40.
    4. Christophe Chorro, 2015. "A Simple Probabilistic Approach of the Yard-Sale Model," Post-Print halshs-01222500, HAL.

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