Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Income and wealth distribution data for different countries
- 3 Major socioeconomic modelling
- 4 Market exchanges and scattering process
- 5 Analytic structure of the kinetic exchange market models
- 6 Microeconomic foundation of the kinetic exchange models
- 7 Dynamics: generation of income, inequality and development
- 8 Outlook
- References
- Index
1 - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Income and wealth distribution data for different countries
- 3 Major socioeconomic modelling
- 4 Market exchanges and scattering process
- 5 Analytic structure of the kinetic exchange market models
- 6 Microeconomic foundation of the kinetic exchange models
- 7 Dynamics: generation of income, inequality and development
- 8 Outlook
- References
- Index
Summary
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.
Oliver Goldsmith, Anglo-Irish writer (1730–74)It would be difficult to find any society or country where income or wealth is equally distributed among its people. Socioeconomic inequality is not limited to modern times; it has been a persistent fact, and a constant source of irritation to most, since time immemorial.
The issue of inequality in terms of income and wealth is perhaps the most fiercely debated subject in economics. Economists and philosophers have spent much time on the normative aspects of this problem (Rawls 1971; Scruton 1985; Sen 1999; Foucault 2003). The direct and indirect effects of inequality on society have also been studied extensively. In particular, the effects of inequality on the growth of the economy (Benabou 1994; Aghion et al. 1999; Barro 1999; Forbes 2000) and on the econopolitical scenario (Blau and Blau 1982; Alesina and Rodrik 1992; Alesina and Perotti 1996; Benabou 2000) have attracted major attention. Relatively less emphasis has been put on the sources of the problem itself. There are several nontrivial issues and open questions related to this observation: How are income and wealth distributed? What are the forms of the distributions? Are they universal, or do they depend upon specific conditions of a country? Perhaps the most important question is: if inequality is universal (as some of its gross features indicate), then what is the reason for such universality?
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- Chapter
- Information
- Econophysics of Income and Wealth Distributions , pp. 1 - 6Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013
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