Stretched exponential distribution of recurrent time of wars in China

Da-Hai Tang, Xiao-Pu Han and Bing-Hong Wang

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2010, vol. 389, issue 13, 2637-2641

Abstract: As a killing machine and a decisive factor of history, wars play an important role in social system. In this paper, we present an empirical exploration of the distribution of recurrent time of wars in ancient China and find that it obeys a stretched exponential form. The pattern we found implies that there are undetected mechanisms that underlie the dynamics of wars. In order to explain the origin of this form, a model mainly based on the correlation between two consecutive wars is constructed, which is somewhat similar to the Bak–Sneppen model. The simulation results of the model are in agreement with the empirical statistics and suggest that the dynamics of wars could relate with self-organized criticality.

Keywords: Recurrent time distribution; War; Stretched exponential distribution; Non-Poisson property; Self-organized criticality (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:389:y:2010:i:13:p:2637-2641

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2010.03.012

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