Eur. Phys. J. B 30, 125-135 (2002)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2002-00366-7

A kinetic approach to some quasi-linear laws of macroeconomics

¹ Department of Physics, College “Roman Voda” Str. M. Eminescu, 4, Roman - 5550, Neamt, Romania
² Faculty of Physics, University “Al. I. Cuza”, Bd. Copou 11, Iasi - 6660, Romania

Corresponding author: ^a mgligor_13@yahoo.com

Received: 25 February 2002
Revised: 11 July 2002
Published online: 19 November 2002

Abstract

Some previous works have presented the data on wealth and income distributions in developed countries and have found that the great majority of population is described by an exponential distribution, which results in idea that the kinetic approach could be adequate to describe this empirical evidence. The aim of our paper is to extend this framework by developing a systematic kinetic approach of the socio-economic systems and to explain how linear laws, modelling correlations between macroeconomic variables, may arise in this context. Firstly we construct the Boltzmann kinetic equation for an idealised system composed by many individuals (workers, officers, business men, etc.), each of them getting a certain income and spending money for their needs. To each individual a certain time variable amount of money is associated – this meaning him/her phase space coordinate. In this way the exponential distribution of money in a closed economy is explicitly found. The extension of this result, including states near the equilibrium, give us the possibility to take into account the regular increase of the total amount of money, according to the modern economic theories. The Kubo-Green-Onsager linear response theory leads us to a set of linear equations between some macroeconomic variables. Finally, the validity of such laws is discussed in relation with the time reversal symmetry and is tested empirically using some macroeconomic time series.