Economic Segregation Under the Action of Trading Uncertainties

Abstract

We study the distribution of wealth in a market economy in which the trading propensity of the agents is uncertain. Our approach is based on kinetic models for collective phenomena, which, at variance with the classical kinetic theory of rarefied gases, has to face the lack of fundamental principles, which are replaced by empirical social forces of which we have at most statistical information. The proposed kinetic description allows recovering emergent wealth distribution profiles, which are described by the steady states of a Fokker–Planck-type equation with uncertain parameters. A statistical study of the stationary profiles of the Fokker–Planck equation then shows that the wealth distribution can develop a multimodal shape in the presence of observable highly stressful economic situations.

Keywords

• kinetic models of wealth distribution
• Fokker–Planck-type equations
• kinetic models of opinion formation
• uncertain parameters