Abstract
The lognormal distribution, very common in physical and biological applications, also appears in various phenomena related to economic and social activities. In socio-economics these phenomena describe in most cases the evolution in time of the distribution of a certain attribute of agents, which aim to reach a desired target by repeated attempts. By resorting to the analogies of these problems with the classical kinetic theory of rarefied gases, we aim to illustrate the nature of the microscopic interactions which give rise to a macroscopic lognormal distribution profile.
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Acknowledgements
This work has been written within the activities of GNFM group of INdAM (National Institute of High Mathematics), and partially supported by the Italian Ministry of Education, University, and Research (MIUR): Dipartimenti di Eccellenza Program (2018–2022) - Dept. of Mathematics “F. Casorati,” University of Pavia. The editors of the volume, who gave to the author the possibility to remember the work of the notable figure of Carlo Cercignani, whose scientific results have been seminal for his research, are kindly acknowledged.
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Toscani, G. (2023). A Multi-Agent Description of Social Phenomena with Lognormal Equilibria. In: Barbante, P., Belgiorno, F.D., Lorenzani, S., Valdettaro, L. (eds) From Kinetic Theory to Turbulence Modeling. INdAM 2021. Springer INdAM Series, vol 51. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-6462-6_20
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