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Is the Pareto-Lévy Law a Good Representation of Income Distributions?

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  • John K. Dagsvik
  • Weizhen Zhu
  • Bjørn H. Vatne
  • Zhiyang Jia

Abstract

Mandelbrot (1960) proposed using the so-called Pareto-Lévy class of distributions as a framework for representing income distributions. We argue in this paper that the Pareto-Lévy distribution is an interesting candidate for representing income distribution because its parameters are easy to interpret and it satisfies a specific invariance-under-aggregation property. We also demonstrate that the Gini coefficient can be expressed as a simple formula of the parameters of the Pareto-Lévy distribution. We subsequently use wage and income data for Norway and seven other OECD countries to fit the Pareto- Lévy distribution as well as the Generalized Beta type II (GB2) distribution. The results show that the Pareto-Lévy distribution fits the data better than the GB2 distribution for most countries, despite the fact that GB2 distribution has four parameters whereas the Pareto-Lévy distribution has only three.

Suggested Citation

  • John K. Dagsvik & Weizhen Zhu & Bjørn H. Vatne & Zhiyang Jia, 2011. "Is the Pareto-Lévy Law a Good Representation of Income Distributions?," LIS Working papers 568, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    • Handle: RePEc:lis:liswps:568
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    1. Majumder, Amita & Chakravarty, Satya Ranjan, 1990. "Distribution of Personal Income: Development of a New Model and Its Application to U.S. Income Data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 5(2), pages 189-196, April-Jun.
    2. Kloek, Teun & van Dijk, Herman K., 1978. "Efficient estimation of income distribution parameters," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 61-74, August.
    3. McDonald, James B. & Xu, Yexiao J., 1995. "A generalization of the beta distribution with applications," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 427-428, October.
    4. McDonald, James B & Mantrala, Anand, 1995. "The Distribution of Personal Income: Revisited," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(2), pages 201-204, April-Jun.
    5. Singh, S K & Maddala, G S, 1976. "A Function for Size Distribution of Incomes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 44(5), pages 963-970, September.
    6. 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.
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    10. Ripsy Bandourian & Robert Turley & James McDonald, 2002. "A Comparison of Parametric Models of Income Distribution across Countries and over Time," LIS Working papers 305, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
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    Cited by:

    1. Vladimir Hlasny, 2021. "Parametric representation of the top of income distributions: Options, historical evidence, and model selection," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(4), pages 1217-1256, September.
    2. Frank A. Cowell & Emmanuel Flachaire, 2014. "Statistical Methods for Distributional Analysis," Working Papers halshs-01115996, HAL.
    3. Frank A. Cowell & Philippe Kerm, 2015. "Wealth Inequality: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 671-710, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Stable distributions; Pareto Lévy distribution; income distributions; invariance principles; Generalized Beta distributions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • C46 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Specific Distributions
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution

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