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Hierarchy and the power-law income distribution tail

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Abstract

What explains the power-law distribution of top incomes? This paper tests the hypothesis that it is firm hierarchy that creates the power-law income distribution tail. Using the available case-study evidence on firm hierarchy, I create the first large-scale simulation of the hierarchical structure of the US private sector. Although not tuned to do so, this model reproduces the power-law scaling of top US incomes. I show that this is purely an effect of firm hierarchy. This raises the possibility that the ubiquity of power-law income distribution tails is due to the ubiquity of hierarchical organization in human societies.

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Notes

  1. The constant c is equal to \( (\alpha - 1) / (x_{ \text {min} })^{1 - \alpha } \), where \(x_{ \text {min}}\) is the lower bound of the power law (i.e., the beginning of the income distribution tail).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Resource Council of Canada (Grant no. 767-2015-1015) for its support. I thank also Jonathan Nitzan, who has offered feedback on aspects of this paper.

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Correspondence to Blair Fix.

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Fix, B. Hierarchy and the power-law income distribution tail. J Comput Soc Sc 1, 471–491 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42001-018-0019-8

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