https://doi.org/10.1140/epjb/e2006-00365-8
A unified framework for the pareto law and Matthew effect using scale-free networks
1
School of Engineering Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, P.R. China
2
Nonlinear Science Center and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, 230026, P.R. China
3
Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Curtin University of Technology, Perth, WA, 6845, Australia
Corresponding authors: a humaobin@ustc.edu.cn - b qswu@ustc.edu.cn
Received:
8
June
2006
Revised:
16
August
2006
Published online:
6
October
2006
We investigate the accumulated wealth distribution by adopting evolutionary games taking place on scale-free networks. The system self-organizes to a critical Pareto distribution (1897) of wealth P(m)∼m-(v+1) with 1.6 < v <2.0 (which is in agreement with that of U.S. or Japan). Particularly, the agent's personal wealth is proportional to its number of contacts (connectivity), and this leads to the phenomenon that the rich gets richer and the poor gets relatively poorer, which is consistent with the Matthew Effect present in society, economy, science and so on. Though our model is simple, it provides a good representation of cooperation and profit accumulation behavior in economy, and it combines the network theory with econophysics.
PACS: 87.23.Ge – Dynamics of social systems / 89.75.Hc – Networks and genealogical trees / 05.10.-a – Computational methods in statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics / 89.75.-k – Complex systems
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2006