Heavy-tailed distributions and the distribution of wealth: Evidence from rich lists in Canada, 1999–2017

Michele Campolieti

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2018, vol. 503, issue C, 263-272

Abstract: I examine whether a power law distribution fits the top wealth distribution, i.e., the “Rich 100”, from Canada. I use a maximum likelihood framework that considers the fit of the estimated distribution as well as allowing tests against alternative heavy-tailed and skewed distributions. I find that while a power law distribution does fit the data well it is not possible to distinguish it from a lognormal distribution truncated to the upper tail.

Keywords: Distribution of wealth; Power law (Pareto) distributions; Lognormal distributions; Weibull distributions; Model comparison tests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:503:y:2018:i:c:p:263-272

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2018.02.057

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