Wealth distribution: To be or not to be a Gamma?

Abstract

We review some aspects, especially those we can tackle analytically, of a minimal model of closed economy analogous to the kinetic theory model of ideal gases where the agents exchange wealth amongst themselves such that the total wealth is conserved, and each individual agent saves a fraction (0 < lambda < 1) of wealth before transaction. We are interested in the special case where the fraction lambda is constant for all the agents (global saving propensity) in the closed system. We show by moment calculations that the resulting wealth distribution cannot be the Gamma distribution that was conjectured in Phys. Rev. E 70, 016104 (2004). We also derive a form for the distribution at low wealth, which is a new result.

7 pages, 4 figures in REVTeX format. Revised version. To appear in "Econophysics", a special issue in Science and Culture (Kolkata, India) to celebrate 15 years of Econophysics