Statistics of Correlations and Fluctuations in a Stochastic Model of Wealth Exchange

Entropy (Basel). 2018 Mar 5;20(3):166. doi: 10.3390/e20030166.

Abstract

In our recently proposed stochastic version of discretized kinetic theory, the exchange of wealth in a society is modelled through a large system of Langevin equations. The deterministic part of the equations is based on non-linear transition probabilities between income classes. The noise terms can be additive, multiplicative or mixed, both with white or Ornstein-Uhlenbeck spectrum. The most important measured correlations are those between Gini inequality index G and social mobility M, between total income and G, and between M and total income. We describe numerical results concerning these correlations and a quantity which gives average stochastic deviations from the equilibrium solutions in dependence on the noise amplitude.

Keywords: Langevin stochastic equations; Ornstein–Uhlenbeck noise; discretized kinetic theory; multiplicative noise; wealth exchange models.