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Pareto versus lognormal: a maximum entropy test

Author

Listed:
  • Marco Bee
  • Massimo Riccaboni
  • Stefano Schiavo

Abstract

It is commonly found that distributions that seem to be lognormal over a broad range change to a power-law (Pareto) distribution for the last few percentiles. The distributions of species abundance, income and wealth as well as file, city and firm sizes are examples with this structure. We present a new test for the occurrence of power-law tails in statistical distributions based on maximum entropy. This methodology allows to identify the true data generating processes even in the case when it is neither lognormal nor Pareto. The maximum entropy approach is then compared with alternative methods at different levels of aggregation of economic systems. Our results provide support to the theory that distributions with lognormal body and Pareto tail can be generated as mixtures of lognormally distributed units.

Suggested Citation

  • Marco Bee & Massimo Riccaboni & Stefano Schiavo, 2011. "Pareto versus lognormal: a maximum entropy test," Department of Economics Working Papers 1102, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    • Handle: RePEc:trn:utwpde:1102
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Coronel-Brizio, H.F. & Hernández-Montoya, A.R., 2005. "On fitting the Pareto–Levy distribution to stock market index data: Selecting a suitable cutoff value," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 354(C), pages 437-449.
    2. De Fabritiis, G. & Pammolli, F. & Riccaboni, M., 2003. "On size and growth of business firms," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 324(1), pages 38-44.
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    Cited by:

    1. Cebreros Alfonso, 2019. "The Micro-economics of Export Supply: Firm-Level Evidence from Mexico," Working Papers 2019-02, Banco de México.
    2. Jakub Growiec & Fabio Pammolli & Massimo Riccaboni, 2020. "Innovation and Corporate Dynamics: A Theoretical Framework," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 12(1), pages 1-45, March.
    3. Bee, Marco & Riccaboni, Massimo & Schiavo, Stefano, 2017. "Where Gibrat meets Zipf: Scale and scope of French firms," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 481(C), pages 265-275.
    4. Arturo Ramos & Till Massing & Atushi Ishikawa & Shouji Fujimoto & Takayuki Mizuno, 2024. "Mixtures of log-normal distributions in the mid-scale range of firm-size variables," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 249-260, September.
    5. Asif, Muhammad & Hussain, Zawar & Asghar, Zahid & Hussain, Muhammad Irfan & Raftab, Mariya & Shah, Said Farooq & Khan, Akbar Ali, 2021. "A statistical evidence of power law distribution in the upper tail of world billionaires’ data 2010–20," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 581(C).
    6. Campolieti, Michele & Ramos, Arturo, 2021. "The distribution of strike size: Empirical evidence from Europe and North America in the 19th and 20th centuries," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 563(C).
    7. Fazio, Giorgio & Modica, Marco, 2012. "Pareto or log-normal? A recursive-truncation approach to the distribution of (all) cities," SIRE Discussion Papers 2012-54, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    8. Letizia Montinari & Massimo Riccaboni & Stefano Schiavo, 2021. "Innovation, trade and multi‐product firms," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 311-337, February.
    9. Marco Bee, 2020. "On discriminating between lognormal and Pareto tail: A mixture-based approach," DEM Working Papers 2020/9, Department of Economics and Management.
    10. Giorgio Fazio & Marco Modica, 2015. "Pareto Or Log-Normal? Best Fit And Truncation In The Distribution Of All Cities," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(5), pages 736-756, November.
    11. Arturo Ramos & Till Massing & Atushi Ishikawa & Shouji Fujimoto & Takayuki Mizuno, 2023. "Composite distributions in the social sciences: A comparative empirical study of firms' sales distribution for France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and Spain," Papers 2301.09438, arXiv.org.
    12. Josic Hrvoje & Bašić Maja, 2018. "Reconsidering Zipf’s law for regional development: The case of settlements and cities in Croatia," Miscellanea Geographica. Regional Studies on Development, Sciendo, vol. 22(1), pages 22-30, March.
    13. Bee, Marco & Riccaboni, Massimo & Schiavo, Stefano, 2013. "The size distribution of US cities: Not Pareto, even in the tail," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 120(2), pages 232-237.
    14. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pareto distribution; power-law; lognormal distribution; maximum entropy; firm size; international trade;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C14 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Semiparametric and Nonparametric Methods: General
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection

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