Eur. Phys. J. Special Topics 225, 1959-1984 (2016)
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2016-60014-2

Review

κ-generalized models of income and wealth distributions: A survey

¹ Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche, della Comunicazione e delle Relazioni Internazionali, Università degli Studi di Macerata, Piazza San Vincenzo Maria Strambi 1, 62100 Macerata, Italy
² Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Piazzale Raffaele Martelli 8, 60121 Ancona, Italy
³ Dipartimento Scienza Applicata e Tecnologia, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129 Torino, Italy
⁴ IRES Piemonte, Istituto di Ricerche Economico Sociali del Piemonte, Via Nizza 18, 10125 Torino, Italy

^a e-mail: fabio.clementi@unimc.it

Received: 29 January 2016
Revised: 12 February 2016
Published online: 26 October 2016

Abstract

The paper provides a survey of results related to the “κ-generalized distribution”, a statistical model for the size distribution of income and wealth. Topics include, among others, discussion of basic analytical properties, interrelations with other statistical distributions as well as aspects that are of special interest in the income distribution field, such as the Gini index and the Lorenz curve. An extension of the basic model that is most able to accommodate the special features of wealth data is also reviewed. The survey of empirical applications given in this paper shows the κ-generalized models of income and wealth to be in excellent agreement with the observed data in many cases.