Global evidence on the distribution of economic profit rates

Michael A. Williams, Grace Baek, Leslie Y. Park and Wei Zhao

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2016, vol. 458, issue C, 356-363

Abstract: Gibrat (1931) initiated the study of the distribution of firms’ profit rates, suggesting the distribution was log-normal. Although initial empirical work supported that finding, a consensus has developed in the literature that the distribution of firm profit rates is best approximated by the Laplace distribution. Using a richer database than prior studies and testing for more theoretical distributions, we find that the distribution of firm profit rates is best approximated by the heavier-tailed Cauchy distribution.

Keywords: Firm profit rates; Theoretical distributions; Empirical distribution function tests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378437116301492
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only. Journal offers the option of making the article available online on Science direct for a fee of $3,000

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:458:y:2016:i:c:p:356-363

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2016.04.027

Access Statistics for this article

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications is currently edited by K. A. Dawson, J. O. Indekeu, H.E. Stanley and C. Tsallis

More articles in Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().