The Distribution of Income and Wealth

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xvi

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2. Introduction

   • Fabio Clementi, Mauro Gallegati

   Pages 1-9

3. The Parametric Approach to Income and Wealth Distributional Analysis

   • Fabio Clementi, Mauro Gallegati

   Pages 11-15

4. The \(\kappa \)-Generalized Distribution

   • Fabio Clementi, Mauro Gallegati

   Pages 17-52

5. The \(\kappa \)-Generalized Mixture Model for the Size Distribution of Wealth

   • Fabio Clementi, Mauro Gallegati

   Pages 53-74

6. Four-Parameter Extensions of the \(\kappa \)-Generalized Distribution

   • Fabio Clementi, Mauro Gallegati

   Pages 75-84

7. Conclusions

   • Fabio Clementi, Mauro Gallegati

   Pages 85-92

8. Back Matter

   Pages 93-177

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This book presents a systematic overview of cutting-edge research in the field of parametric modeling of personal income and wealth distribution, which allows one to represent how income/wealth is distributed within a given population. The estimated parameters may be used to gain insights into the causes of the evolution of income/wealth distribution over time, or to interpret the differences between distributions across countries. Moreover, once a given parametric model has been fitted to a data set, one can straightforwardly compute inequality and poverty measures. Finally, estimated parameters may be used in empirical modeling of the impact of macroeconomic conditions on the evolution of personal income/wealth distribution. In reviewing the state of the art in the field, the authors provide a thorough discussion of parametric models belonging to the “κ-generalized” family, a new and fruitful set of statistical models for the size distribution of income and wealth that they have developed over several years of collaborative and multidisciplinary research. This book will be of interest to all who share the belief that problems of income and wealth distribution merit detailed conceptual and methodological attention.

• Distributional Analysis
• Distributions
• Economic Inequality Indices
• Economic Inequality Measurements
• Income Disparity Analysis
• Income/wealth Distribution
• Parametric Model for Income and Wealth
• Size Distribution of Income
• κ-generalized Distribution
• data-driven science, modeling and theory building

• University of Macerata, Macerata, Italy

  Fabio Clementi

• Polytechnic University of Marche, Ancona, Italy

  Mauro Gallegati

Mauro Gallegati is Professor of Economics at the Polytechnic University of Marche (Ancona, Italy). His research includes business fluctuations, nonlinear dynamics, models of financial fragility, and heterogeneous interacting agents. He has published books and many papers in leading journals in the fields of economics, economic history and history of economic analysis, nonlinear mathematics, applied economics, complexity, and econophysics. He has been involved in several international research projects since 2004.

Fabio Clementi, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Macerata (Italy). His main research interests focus on the size distribution of income, wealth and firms, the business cycle analysis, and the empirical validation of agent-based economic models with real-world data. He has also been involved in national and international research projects in the field of agent-based computational economics.

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