Zipf distribution in top Chinese firms and an economic explanation

Jianhua Zhang, Qinghua Chen and Yougui Wang

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2009, vol. 388, issue 10, 2020-2024

Abstract: By analyzing the data of top 500 Chinese firms from the year 2002 to 2007, we reveal that their revenues and ranks obey the Zipf’s law with exponent of 1 for each year. This result confirms the universality of firm size character which has been presented in many other empirical works, since China possesses a unique ideological and political system. We offer an explanation of it based on a simple economic model which takes production and capital accumulation into account.

Keywords: Firm size distribution; Zipf’s law; AK model; Multiplicative process (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (50)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:388:y:2009:i:10:p:2020-2024

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2009.01.027

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