267 research outputs found
Cross Ranking of Cities and Regions: Population vs. Income
This paper explores the relationship between the inner economical structure
of communities and their population distribution through a rank-rank analysis
of official data, along statistical physics ideas within two techniques. The
data is taken on Italian cities. The analysis is performed both at a global
(national) and at a more local (regional) level in order to distinguish "macro"
and "micro" aspects. First, the rank-size rule is found not to be a standard
power law, as in many other studies, but a doubly decreasing power law. Next,
the Kendall and the Spearman rank correlation coefficients which measure pair
concordance and the correlation between fluctuations in two rankings,
respectively, - as a correlation function does in thermodynamics, are
calculated for finding rank correlation (if any) between demography and wealth.
Results show non only global disparities for the whole (country) set, but also
(regional) disparities, when comparing the number of cities in regions, the
number of inhabitants in cities and that in regions, as well as when comparing
the aggregated tax income of the cities and that of regions. Different outliers
are pointed out and justified. Interestingly, two classes of cities in the
country and two classes of regions in the country are found. "Common sense"
social, political, and economic considerations sustain the findings. More
importantly, the methods show that they allow to distinguish communities, very
clearly, when specific criteria are numerically sound. A specific modeling for
the findings is presented, i.e. for the doubly decreasing power law and the two
phase system, based on statistics theory, e.g., urn filling. The model ideas
can be expected to hold when similar rank relationship features are observed in
fields. It is emphasized that the analysis makes more sense than one through a
Pearson value-value correlation analysis.Comment: 34 pages, 13 figures, 6 tables, 81 references; prepared for Journal
of Statistical Mechanics: Theory and Experiment (JSTAT
Assessing the Inequalities of Wealth in Regions: the Italian Case
This paper discusses region wealth size distributions, through their member
cities aggregated tax income. As an illustration, the official data of the
Italian Ministry of Economics and Finance has been considered, for all Italian
municipalities, over the period 2007-2011. Yearly data of the aggregated tax
income is transformed into a few indicators: the Gini, Theil, and
Herfindahl-Hirschman indices. On one hand, the relative interest of each index
is discussed. On the other hand, numerical results confirm that Italy is
divided into very different regional realities, a few which are specifically
outlined. This shows the interest of transforming data in an adequate manner
and of comparing such indices.Comment: to be published in Quality and Quantity; 23 pages; 1 figure; 23
tables; 19 reference
Religion-based Urbanization Process in Italy: Statistical Evidence from Demographic and Economic Data
This paper analyzes some economic and demographic features of Italians living
in cities containing a Saint name in their appellation (hagiotoponyms).
Demographic data come from the surveys done in the 15th (2011) Italian Census,
while the economic wealth of such cities is explored through their recent
[2007-2011] aggregated tax income (ATI). This cultural problem is treated from
various points of view. First, the exact list of hagiotoponyms is obtained
through linguistic and religiosity criteria. Next, it is examined how such
cities are distributed in the Italian regions. Demographic and economic
perspectives are also offered at the Saint level, i.e. calculating the
cumulated values of the number of inhabitants and the ATI, "per Saint", as well
as the corresponding relative values taking into account the Saint popularity.
On one hand, frequency-size plots and cumulative distribution function plots,
and on the other hand, scatter plots and rank-size plots between the various
quantities are shown and discussed in order to find the importance of
correlations between the variables. It is concluded that rank-rank correlations
point to a strong Saint effect, which explains what actually Saint-based
toponyms imply in terms of comparing economic and demographic data.Comment: 55 pages, 70 refs., 21 figures, 15 tables; prepared for and to be
published in Quantity & Qualit
Stochastic Ising model with flipping sets of spins and fast decreasing temperature
This paper deals with the stochastic Ising model with a temperature shrinking
to zero as time goes to infinity. A generalization of the Glauber dynamics is
considered, on the basis of the existence of simultaneous flips of some spins.
Such dynamics act on a wide class of graphs which are periodic and embedded in
. The interactions between couples of spins are assumed to be
quenched i.i.d. random variables following a Bernoulli distribution with
support . The specific problem here analyzed concerns the assessment
of how often (finitely or infinitely many times, almost surely) a given spin
flips. Adopting the classification proposed in \cite{GNS}, we present
conditions in order to have models of type (any spin flips
finitely many times), (any spin flips infinitely many times) and
(a mixed case). Several examples are provided in all dimensions
and for different cases of graphs. The most part of the obtained results holds
true for the case of zero-temperature and some of them for the cubic lattice
as well.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in "Annales de
l'Institut Henri Poincar\'e, Probabilit\'es et Statistiques
Economic growth, corruption and tax evasion
In this paper, we explore tax revenues in a regime of widespread corruption in a growth model. We develop a Ramsey model of economic growth with rival but non-excludable public good which is financed by taxes which can be evaded via corrupt tax inspector. We prove that the relationship between the tax rate and tax collection, in a dynamic framework, is not unique, but is different depending on the relevance of the shame effect. We show that growth rates - both of income and of tax revenues - decrease, as the tax rate increases, for all types of shame effect countries but they differ in how the growth rate decreases as the tax rate increases: the rate of decrease is higher in low shame countries than in high shame countries.
Roots and Effects of Investments' Misperception
This work deals with the problem of investors' irrational behavior and financial products' misperception. The theoretical analysis of the mechanisms driving wrong evaluations of investment performances is explored. The study is supported by the application of Monte Carlo simulations to the remarkable case of structured financial products. Some motivations explaining the popularity among retail investors of these complex financial instruments are also provided. Investors are assumed to compare the performances of different projects through stochastic dominance rules and, to pursue our scopes, a new definition of this decision criteria is introduced.
Asymptotic convergence of weighted random matrices: nonparametric cointegration analysis for I(2) processes.
The aim of this paper is to provide a new perspective on the nonparametric co-integration analysis for integrated processes of the second order. Our analysis focus on a pair of random matrices related to such integrated process. Such matrices are constructed by introducing some weight functions. Under asymptotic conditions on such weights, convergence results in distribution are obtained. Therefore, a generalized eigenvalue problem is solved. Differential equations and stochastic calculus theory are used.Co-integration, Nonparametric, Differential equations, Asymptotic properties.
Long run analysis of crude oil portfolios
This paper deals with the analysis of the long-run behavior of a set of mispricing portfolios generated by three crude oils, where one of the oils is the reference commodity and it is compared to a combination of the other two ones. To this aim, the long-term parameter related to the mispricing portfolio are estimated on empirical data. We pay particular attention to the cases of mispricing portfolios either of stationary type or following a Brownian motion: the former situation is associated to replication portfolios of a reference commodity; the latter one allows to implement forecasts. The theoretical setting is validated through empirical data on WTI, Brent and Dubai oils
A new measure for community structures through indirect social connections
Based on an expert systems approach, the issue of community detection can be
conceptualized as a clustering model for networks. Building upon this further,
community structure can be measured through a clustering coefficient, which is
generated from the number of existing triangles around the nodes over the
number of triangles that can be hypothetically constructed. This paper provides
a new definition of the clustering coefficient for weighted networks under a
generalized definition of triangles. Specifically, a novel concept of triangles
is introduced, based on the assumption that, should the aggregate weight of two
arcs be strong enough, a link between the uncommon nodes can be induced. Beyond
the intuitive meaning of such generalized triangles in the social context, we
also explore the usefulness of them for gaining insights into the topological
structure of the underlying network. Empirical experiments on the standard
networks of 500 commercial US airports and on the nervous system of the
Caenorhabditis elegans support the theoretical framework and allow a comparison
between our proposal and the standard definition of clustering coefficient
Systemic risk assessment through high order clustering coefficient
In this article we propose a novel measure of systemic risk in the context of
financial networks. To this aim, we provide a definition of systemic risk which
is based on the structure, developed at different levels, of clustered
neighbours around the nodes of the network. The proposed measure incorporates
the generalized concept of clustering coefficient of order of a node
introduced in Cerqueti et al. (2018). Its properties are also explored in terms
of systemic risk assessment. Empirical experiments on the time-varying global
banking network show the effectiveness of the presented systemic risk measure
and provide insights on how systemic risk has changed over the last years, also
in the light of the recent financial crisis and the subsequent more stringent
regulation for globally systemically important banks.Comment: Submitte
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