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arXiv · 1906.04822

Generalized Beta Prime Distribution: Stochastic Model of Economic Exchange and Properties of Inequality Indices

M. Dashti Moghaddam·Jeffrey Mills·R. A. Serota
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Abstract

We argue that a stochastic model of economic exchange, whose steady-state distribution is a Generalized Beta Prime (also known as GB2), and some unique properties of the latter, are the reason for GB2's success in describing wealth/income distributions. We use housing sale prices as a proxy to wealth/income distribution to numerically illustrate this point. We also explore parametric limits of the distribution to do so analytically. We discuss parametric properties of the inequality indices -- Gini, Hoover, Theil T and Theil L -- vis-a-vis those of GB2 and introduce a new inequality index, which serves a similar purpose. We argue that Hoover and Theil L are more appropriate measures for distributions with power-law dependencies, especially fat tails, such as GB2.

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M. Dashti Moghaddam, Jeffrey Mills, R. A. Serota. 2019-06-11. Generalized Beta Prime Distribution: Stochastic Model of Economic Exchange and Properties of Inequality Indices. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physa.2020.125047

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