A common mode of origin of power laws in models of market and earthquake

Pratip Bhattacharyya, Arnab Chatterjee and Bikas K. Chakrabarti

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2007, vol. 381, issue C, 377-382

Abstract: We show that there is a common mode of origin for the power laws observed in two different models: (i) the Pareto law for the distribution of money among the agents with random-saving propensities in an ideal gas-like market model and (ii) the Gutenberg–Richter law for the distribution of overlaps in a fractal-overlap model for earthquakes. We find that the power laws appear as the asymptotic forms of ever-widening log-normal distributions for the agents’ money and the overlap magnitude, respectively. The identification of the generic origin of the power laws helps in better understanding and in developing generalized views of phenomena in such diverse areas as economics and geophysics.

Keywords: Wealth distribution; Earthquake model; Log-normal distribution; Power-law distribution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:381:y:2007:i:c:p:377-382

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2007.02.096

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