World per capita gross domestic product measured nominally and across countries with purchasing power parity: Stretched exponential or Boltzmann–Gibbs distribution?

E. Hernández-Ramírez, M. del Castillo-Mussot and J. Hernández-Casildo
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Eric Hernández Ramírez ()

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2021, vol. 568, issue C

Abstract: From 1990 to 2017, both per capita nominal country gross domestic product (PCGDP) and gross domestic product at purchasing power parity (PCGDP-PPP) follow, except for a few low-income countries, stretched exponential distributions (SED) exp(−xβ) as complementary cumulative distributions, with 0.5<β<0.7 (fat tails) for PCGDP and with β close to 1 (quasi-exponential behavior) for PCGDP-PPP. After 2008–2009 world financial and economic crisis, as β approaches 1, PCGDP-PPP SED seems to converge in time to an exponential, in accordance to a simple econophysics analogy between conservation of energy in elastic collisions (Boltzmann–Gibbs distribution) and money in economic trade. As compared to nominal or market values of PCGDP, our results may reinforce the use of PCGDP-PPP as a more accurate and stable measurement of average economic activity across countries.

Keywords: Econophysics; Per capita GDP-PPP; Stretched exponential distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:568:y:2021:i:c:s0378437120309882

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2020.125690

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