Early attempts to integrate kinetic theory into economics in Italy between the wars

Gianfranco Tusset

The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 2025, vol. 32, issue 2, 190-213

Abstract: Between the two world wars, a group of Italian mathematicians, statisticians and economists set out to use the tools of statistical mechanics to interpret the Pareto income distribution curve as a probability distribution. Models based on Boltzmann's thermal equilibrium were independently developed to find an economic variable, comparable to the kinetic energy of gas theory, that could explain the heavy tail of the Pareto curve. The various avenues explored eventually led them back to Pareto's much debated explanation, namely that the hyperbolic distribution of income was due to the unequal distribution of talent.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2024.2396860

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