Entrepreneurs, Chance, and the Deterministic Concentration of Wealth

In many economies, wealth is strikingly concentrated. Entrepreneurs–individuals with ownership in for-profit enterprises–comprise a large portion of the wealthiest individuals, and their behavior may help explain patterns in the national distribution of wealth. Entrepreneurs are less diversified and more heavily invested in their own companies than is commonly assumed in economic models. We present an intentionally simplified individual-based model of wealth generation among entrepreneurs to assess the role of chance and determinism in the distribution of wealth. We demonstrate that chance alone, combined with the deterministic effects of compounding returns, can lead to unlimited concentration of wealth, such that the percentage of all wealth owned by a few entrepreneurs eventually approaches 100%. Specifically, concentration of wealth results when the rate of return on investment varies by entrepreneur and by time. This result is robust to inclusion of realities such as differing skill among entrepreneurs. The most likely overall growth rate of the economy decreases as businesses become less diverse, suggesting that high concentrations of wealth may adversely affect a country's economic growth. We show that a tax on large inherited fortunes, applied to a small portion of the most fortunate in the population, can efficiently arrest the concentration of wealth at intermediate levels

On the convergence of the partial least squares path modeling algorithm

Partial least squares path modeling, PLS, Convergence, 62J99 Linear inference, regression, 91B82 Statistical methods; economic indices and measures, 91E45 Measurement and performance,

Partial least squares path modeling: Quo vadis?

Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a family of statistical techniques that has become very popular in marketing. Its ability to model latent variables, to take various forms of measurement error into account, and to test entire theories makes it useful for a plethora of research questions. It does not come as a surprise that some of the most cited scholarly articles in the marketing domain are about SEM (e.g., Bagozzi and Yi 1988; Fornell and Larcker 1981), and that SEM is covered by two contributions within this volume. The need for two contributions arises from the SEM family tree having two major branches (Reinartz et al. 2009): covariance-based SEM (which is presented in Chap. 11) and variance-based SEM, which is presented in this chapter

Analyzing quadratic effects of formative constructs by means of variance-based structural equation modelling

Together with the development of information systems research, there has also been increased interest in non-linear relationships between focal constructs. This article presents six Partial Least Squares-based approaches for estimating formative constructs' quadratic effects. In addition, these approaches' performance is tested by means of a complex Monte Carlo experiment. The experiment reveals significant and substantial differences between the approaches. In general, the performance of the hybrid approach as suggested by Wold (1982) is most convincing in terms of point estimate accuracy, statistical power, and prediction accuracy. The two-stage approach suggested by Chin et al (1996) showed almost the same performance; differences between it and the hybrid approach - although statistically significant - were unsubstantial. Based on these results, the article provides guidelines for the analysis of nonlinear effects by means of variance-based structural equation modelling

On aggregation and welfare analysis

Aggregation, Real national income, Social welfare functions, D6, E1,