arXiv subjects

Manipushpak Mitra

Publications and source records attributed to Manipushpak Mitra.

10 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Kinetic Models of Wealth Distribution Having Extreme Inequality: Numerical Study of Their Stability Against Random Exchanges

In view of some persistent recent reports on a singular kind of growth of the world wealth inequality, where a finite (often handful) number of people tend to possess more than the wealth of the planet's 50\% population, we explore here if the kinetic exchange models of the market can ever capture such features where a significant fraction of wealth can concentrate in the hands of a countable few when the market size $N$ tends to infinity. One already existing example of such a kinetic exchange model is the Chakraborti or Yard-Sale model, where (in absence of tax redistribution etc) the entire wealth condenses in the hand of one (for any value of $N$), and the market dynamics stops. With tax redistribution etc, its steady state dynamics have been shown to have remarkable applicability in many cases of our extremely unequal world. We show here that another kinetic exchange model (called here the Banerjee model) has intriguing intrinsic dynamics, by which only ten rich traders or agents possess about 99.98\% of the total wealth in the steady state (without any tax etc like external manipulation) for any large value of $N$. We will discuss in some detail the statistical features of this model using Monte Carlo simulations. We will also show, if the traders each have a non-vanishing probability $f$ of following random exchanges, then these condensations of wealth (100\% in the hand of one agent in the Chakraborti model, or about 99.98\% in the hands ten agents in the Banerjee model) disappear in the large $N$ limit. We will also see that due to the built-in possibility of random exchange dynamics in the earlier proposed Goswami-Sen model, where the exchange probability decreases with an inverse power of the wealth difference of the pair of traders, one did not see any wealth condensation phenomena.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2023

Sandpile Universality in Social Inequality: Gini and Kolkata Measures

Social inequalities are ubiquitous and evolve towards a universal limit. Herein, we extensively review the values of inequality measures, namely the Gini ($g$) index and the Kolkata ($k$) index, two standard measures of inequality used in the analysis of various social sectors through data analysis. The Kolkata index, denoted as $k$, indicates the proportion of the `wealth' owned by $(1-k)$ fraction of the `people'. Our findings suggest that both the Gini index and the Kolkata index tend to converge to similar values (around $g=k \approx 0.87$, starting from the point of perfect equality, where $g=0$ and $k=0.5$) as competition increases in different social institutions, such as markets, movies, elections, universities, prize winning, battle fields, sports (Olympics), etc., under conditions of unrestricted competition (no social welfare or support mechanism). In this review, we present the concept of a generalized form of Pareto's 80/20 law ($k=0.80$), where the coincidence of inequality indices is observed. The observation of this coincidence is consistent with the precursor values of the $g$ and $k$ indices for the self-organized critical (SOC) state in self-tuned physical systems such as sand piles. These results provide quantitative support for the view that interacting socioeconomic systems can be understood within the framework of SOC, which has been hypothesized for many years. These findings suggest that the SOC model can be extended to capture the dynamics of complex socioeconomic systems and help us better understand their behavior.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2023

International Centre for the Advancement of Multidisciplinary Studies on Socio-Economic Systems

We start by summarising very briefly the various prior attempts (during the last one and half a decade), some of which were made as independent research centres and others as visiting centres with extensive visiting programs for luminaries from various basic sciences (Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Economics, and Sociology) and students from various institutions around the world for such interdisciplinary fusion of ideas and researches. Additionally, we briefly discuss the efforts that our institute has made (without any visible success so far, as in the other attempts elsewhere). We then emphasise the critical need for such an international centre to attract stalwarts in the basic disciplinary fields as well as interested students from around the world in order to comprehend the world's global socio-economic dynamics.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗

arXiv2022

Scaling Behavior of the Hirsch Index for Failure Avalanches, Percolation Clusters and Paper Citations

A popular measure for citation inequalities of individual scientists has been the Hirsch index ($h$). If for any scientist the number $n_c$ of citations is plotted against the serial number $n_p$ of the paper having those many citations (when the papers are ordered from highest cited to lowest) then $h$ corresponds to the nearest lower integer value of $n_p$ below the fixed point of the non-linear citation function (or given by $n_c = h = n_p$ if both $n_p$ and $n_c$ are dense set of integers near the $h$ value). The same index can be estimated (from $h=s=n_{s}$) for the avalanche or cluster of size ($s$) distributions ($n_s$) in elastic fiber bundle or percolation models. Another such inequality index, called the Kolkata index ($k$) says that $(1-k)$ fraction of papers attract $k$ fraction of citations ($k=0.80$ corresponds to the 80-20 law of Pareto). We find, for stress ($σ$), lattice occupation probability ($p$) or Kolkata index ($k$) near the bundle failure threshold ($σ_c$) or percolation threshold ($p_c$) or critical value of Kolkata index $k_c$, good fit to Widom-Stauffer like scaling $h/[\sqrt{N}/log N]$ = $f(\sqrt{N}[σ_c -σ]^α)$, $h/[\sqrt{N}/log N]=f(\sqrt{N}|p_c -p|^α)$ or $h/[\sqrt{N_c}/log N_c]=f(\sqrt{N_c}|k_c -k|^α)$ respectively, with asymptotically defined scaling function $f$, for systems of size $N$ (total number of fibers or lattice sites) or $N_c$ (total number of citations), and $α$ denoting the appropriate scaling exponent. We also show that if the number ($N_m$) of members of parliaments or national assemblies of different countries (with population $N$) is identified as their respective $h-$index, then the data fit the scaling relation $N_m \sim \sqrt N /log N$, resolving a major recent controversy.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2022

Evolutionary Dynamics of Social Inequality and Coincidence of Gini and Kolkata indices under Unrestricted Competition

Social inequalities are ubiquitous and here we show that the values of the Gini ($g$) and Kolkata ($k$) indices, two generic inequality indices, approach each other (starting from $g = 0$ and $k = 0.5$ for equality) as the competitions grow in various social institutions like markets, universities, elections, etc. It is further showed that these two indices become equal and stabilize at a value (at $g = k \simeq 0.87$) under unrestricted competitions. We propose to view this coincidence of inequality indices as a generalized version of the (more than a) century old 80-20 law of Pareto. Furthermore, the coincidence of the inequality indices noted here is very similar to the ones seen before for self-organized critical (SOC) systems. The observations here, therefore, stand as a quantitative support towards viewing interacting socio-economic systems in the framework of SOC, an idea conjectured for years.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2021

A characterization of lexicographic preferences

This paper characterizes lexicographic preferences over alternatives that are identified by a finite number of attributes. Our characterization is based on two key concepts: a weaker notion of continuity called 'mild continuity' (strict preference order between any two alternatives that are different with respect to every attribute is preserved around their small neighborhoods) and an 'unhappy set' (any alternative outside such a set is preferred to all alternatives inside). Three key aspects of our characterization are: (i) use of continuity arguments, (ii) the stepwise approach of looking at two attributes at a time and (iii) in contrast with the previous literature, we do not impose noncompensation on the preference and consider an alternative weaker condition.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2020

Inequality Measures: The Kolkata index in comparison with other measures

We provide a survey of the Kolkata index of social inequality, focusing in particular on income inequality. Based on the observation that inequality functions (such as the Lorenz function), giving the measures of income or wealth against that of the population, to be generally nonlinear, we show that the fixed point (like Kolkata index k) of such a nonlinear function (or related, like the complementary Lorenz function) offer better measure of inequality than the average quantities (like Gini index). Indeed the Kolkata index can be viewed as a generalized Hirsch index for a normalized inequality function and gives the fraction k of the total wealth possessed by the rich (1-k) fraction of the population. We analyze the structures of the inequality indices for both continuous and discrete income distributions. We also compare the Kolkata index to some other measures like the Gini coefficient and the Pietra index. Lastly, we provide some empirical studies which illustrate the differences between the Kolkata index and the Gini coefficient.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2019

On the Kolkata index as a measure of income inequality

We study the mathematical and economic structure of the Kolkata (k) index of income inequality. We show that the k-index always exists and is a unique fixed point of the complementary Lorenz function, where the Lorenz function itself gives the fraction of cumulative income possessed by the cumulative fraction of population (when arranged from poorer to richer). We show that the k-index generalizes Pareto's 80/20 rule. Although the k and Pietra indices both split the society into two groups, we show that k-index is a more intensive measure for the poor-rich split. We compare the normalized k-index with the Gini coefficient and the Pietra index and discuss when they coincide. We establish that for any income distribution the value of Gini coefficient is no less than that of the Pietra index and the value of the Pietra index is no less than that of the normalized k-index. While the Gini coefficient and the Pietra index are affected by transfers exclusively among the rich or among the poor, the k-index is only affected by transfers across the two groups.

econ.TH↗

arXiv2010

Statistics of the Kolkata Paise Restaurant Problem

We study the dynamics of a few stochastic learning strategies for the 'Kolkata Paise Restaurant' problem, where N agents choose among N equally priced but differently ranked restaurants every evening such that each agent tries get to dinner in the best restaurant (each serving only one customer and the rest arriving there going without dinner that evening). We consider the learning strategies to be similar for all the agents and assume that each follow the same probabilistic or stochastic strategy dependent on the information of the past successes in the game. We show that some 'naive' strategies lead to much better utilization of the services than some relatively 'smarter' strategies. We also show that the service utilization fraction as high as 0.80 can result for a stochastic strategy, where each agent sticks to his past choice (independent of success achieved or not; with probability decreasing inversely in the past crowd size). The numerical results for utilization fraction of the services in some limiting cases are analytically examined.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2009

The Kolkata Paise Restaurant Problem and Resource Utilization

We study the dynamics of the "Kolkata Paise Restaurant problem". The problem is the following: In each period, N agents have to choose between N restaurants. Agents have a common ranking of the restaurants. Restaurants can only serve one customer. When more than one customer arrives at the same restaurant, one customer is chosen at random and is served; the others do not get the service. We first introduce the one-shot versions of the Kolkata Paise Restaurant problem which we call one-shot KPR games. We then study the dynamics of the Kolkata Paise Restaurant problem (which is a repeated game version of any given one shot KPR game) for large N. For statistical analysis, we explore the long time steady state behavior. In many such models with myopic agents we get under-utilization of resources, that is, we get a lower aggregate payoff compared to the social optimum. We study a number of myopic strategies, focusing on the average occupation fraction of restaurants.

physics.soc-ph↗