Eur. Phys. J. B 20, 585-589

Evidence for the exponential distribution of income in the USA

A. Dragulescu and V.M. Yakovenko

Department of Physics, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742-4111, USA

yakovenk@physics.umd.edu

(Received 21 August 2000)

Abstract
Using tax and census data, we demonstrate that the distribution of individual income in the USA is exponential. Our calculated Lorenz curve without fitting parameters and Gini coefficient 1/2 agree well with the data. From the individual income distribution, we derive the distribution function of income for families with two earners and show that it also agrees well with the data. The family data for the period 1947-1994 fit the Lorenz curve and Gini coefficient 3/8=0.375 calculated for two-earners families.

PACS
87.23.Ge - Dynamics of social systems.
89.90.+n - Other topics in areas of applied and interdisciplinary physics.
02.50.-r - Probability theory, stochastic processes, and statistics.


© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2001

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