Evidence for the Independence of Waged and Unwaged Income, Evidence for Boltzmann Distributions in Waged Income, and the Outlines of a Coherent Theory of Income Distribution

Geoff Willis and Juergen Mimkes
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Juergen Mimkes: University of Paderborn

Microeconomics from EconWPA

Abstract: Two sets of high quality income data are analysed in detail, one set from the UK, one from the USA. It is firstly demonstrated that both a log-normal distribution and a Boltzmann distribution can give very accurate fits to both these data sets. The absence of a power tail in the US data set is then discussed. Taken in conjunction with detailed evidence from the UK and Japanese income data, a strong case is made for the mathematically separate treatment of waged and unwaged income. The authors present a case for preferring the use of the Boltzmann distribution over the log-normal function, this leads to a brief review of the work of a number of researchers, which shows that a coherent theory for the distribution of all income can be postulated.

Keywords: Income distribution; log-normal; Boltzmann (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D1 D2 D3 D4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-08-18
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 28
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wpa:wuwpmi:0408001

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