IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wai/econwp/22-08.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Zipf's Law and #econtwitter

Author

Abstract

This letter investigates the distribution of Twitter followers for the top 521 economists and for the top 5000 Twitter users, testing whether each distribution follows a power law. We find strong evidence for a power law, both for economists and for Twitter more generally. However, the inequality in the distribution of followers is greater among economists, which has potentially negative implications for the quality of economic debate on Twitter.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael P Cameron, 2022. "Zipf's Law and #econtwitter," Working Papers in Economics 22/08, University of Waikato.
    • Handle: RePEc:wai:econwp:22/08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repec.its.waikato.ac.nz/wai/econwp/2208.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier, 2008. "Why has CEO Pay Increased So Much?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(1), pages 49-100.
    2. Xavier Gabaix & Rustam Ibragimov, 2011. "Rank - 1 / 2: A Simple Way to Improve the OLS Estimation of Tail Exponents," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(1), pages 24-39, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Igor Fedotenkov, 2020. "A Review of More than One Hundred Pareto-Tail Index Estimators," Statistica, Department of Statistics, University of Bologna, vol. 80(3), pages 245-299.
    2. Chen, Zhimin & Ibragimov, Rustam, 2019. "One country, two systems? The heavy-tailedness of Chinese A- and H- share markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 115-141.
    3. di Giovanni, Julian & Levchenko, Andrei A. & Rancière, Romain, 2011. "Power laws in firm size and openness to trade: Measurement and implications," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 42-52, September.
    4. Markus Ibert & Ron Kaniel & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Roine Vestman, 2018. "Are Mutual Fund Managers Paid for Investment Skill?," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 31(2), pages 715-772.
    5. Luis Garicano & Claire Lelarge & John Van Reenen, 2016. "Firm Size Distortions and the Productivity Distribution: Evidence from France," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(11), pages 3439-3479, November.
    6. Xavier Gabaix & Augustin Landier & Julien Sauvagnat, 2014. "CEO Pay and Firm Size: An Update After the Crisis," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 124(574), pages 40-59, February.
    7. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2017. "Econophysics and Financial Economics: An Emerging Dialogue," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780190205034.
    8. Ankudinov, Andrei & Ibragimov, Rustam & Lebedev, Oleg, 2017. "Heavy tails and asymmetry of returns in the Russian stock market," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 200-219.
    9. Chen, Yi-Fan & Hsu, Wen-Tai & Peng, Shin-Kun, 2023. "Innovation, firm size distribution, and gains from trade," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 18(1), January.
    10. Xavier Gabaix, 2009. "Power Laws in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 1(1), pages 255-294, May.
    11. Rustam Ibragimov & Marat Ibragimov & Rufat Khamidov, 2010. "Measuring Inequality in CIS Countries: Theory and Empirics," wiiw Balkan Observatory Working Papers 88, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, wiiw.
    12. Lustig, Hanno & Syverson, Chad & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn, 2011. "Technological change and the growing inequality in managerial compensation," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(3), pages 601-627, March.
    13. Robert J. Barro & Tao Jin, 2011. "On the Size Distribution of Macroeconomic Disasters," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(5), pages 1567-1589, September.
    14. Michał Brzeziński, 2013. "Robust estimation of the Pareto index: A Monte Carlo Analysis," Working Papers 2013-32, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
    15. Jovanovic, Franck & Schinckus, Christophe, 2016. "Breaking down the barriers between econophysics and financial economics," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 256-266.
    16. Giulio Bottazzi & Davide Pirino & Federico Tamagni, 2015. "Zipf law and the firm size distribution: a critical discussion of popular estimators," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 25(3), pages 585-610, July.
    17. Piotr Gabrielczak & Tomasz Serwach, 2021. "Firm-Size Distribution in Poland: Is Power Law Applicable?," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 2, pages 31-49.
    18. Michael P Cameron, 2022. "Zipf's Law across social media," Working Papers in Economics 22/07, University of Waikato.
    19. Piotr Gabrielczak & Tomasz Serwach, 2019. "Firm-size distribution in Poland – is power law applicable?," Lodz Economics Working Papers 3/2019, University of Lodz, Faculty of Economics and Sociology.
    20. Ibragimov, Marat & Ibragimov, Rustam & Kattuman, Paul, 2013. "Emerging markets and heavy tails," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 2546-2559.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social media; Zipf's Law; Power Law; Pareto distribution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • L86 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Information and Internet Services; Computer Software

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wai:econwp:22/08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Geua Boe-Gibson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaknz.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.