Is the Distribution of Income Compatible with a Stable Distribution?

John K. Dagsvik and Bjørn H. Vatne ()
Additional contact information
John K. Dagsvik and Bjørn H. Vatne: Statistics Norway, http://www.ssb.no/english/research/
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: John K. Dagsvik

Discussion Papers from Research Department of Statistics Norway

Abstract: Mandelbrot (1961) proposed to apply the class of Pareto-Levy distributions - which belong to the Stable distributions - as a framework for modelling income distributions. He also presented theoretic arguments in favor of the Pareto-Levy distributions. In this paper we provide additional theoretical justification for this class of distributions. We also use micro data on individual market income to estimate the parameters of a Pareto-Levy distribution. Several estimation methods have been applied. The estimated Pareto-Levy distribution appears to fit the data well.

Keywords: Stable distributions; Pareto-Levy distributions; Income distributions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C13 D31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-lab
Date: 1999-01
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ssb.no/publikasjoner/DP/pdf/dp246.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ssb:dispap:246

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers from Research Department of Statistics Norway
Address: P.O.Box 8131 Dep, N-0033 Oslo, Norway
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by B Mellemstrand ().