We construct a theoretical model for equilibrium distribution of workers across sectors with different labor productivity, assuming that a sector can accommodate a limited number of workers which depends only on its productivity. A general formula fo
r such distribution of productivity is obtained, using the detail-balance condition necessary for equilibrium in the Ehrenfest-Brillouin model. We also carry out an empirical analysis on the average number of workers in given productivity sectors on the basis of an exhaustive dataset in Japan. The theoretical formula succeeds in explaining the two distinctive observational facts in a unified way, that is, a Boltzmann distribution with negative temperature on low-to-medium productivity side and a decreasing part in a power-law form on high productivity side.
Research activities of Kyoto Econophysics Group is reviewed. Strong emphasis has been placed on real economy. While the initial stage of research was a first high-definition data analysis on personal income, it soon progressed to firm dynamics, growt
h rate distribution and establishment of Paretos law and Gibrats law. It then led to analysis and simulation of firm dynamics on economic network. Currently it covers a wide rage of dynamics of firms and financial institutions on complex network, using Japanese large-scale network data, some of which are not available in other countries. Activities of this group for publicising and promoting understanding of econophysics is also reviewed.
We show that an economic system populated by multiple agents generates an equilibrium distribution in the form of multiple scaling laws of conditional PDFs, which are sufficient for characterizing the probability distribution. The existence of the do
uble scaling law is demonstrated empirically for the sales and the labor of one million Japanese firms. Theoretical study of the scaling laws suggests lognormal joint distributions of sales and labor and a scaling law for labor productivity, both of which are confirmed empirically. This framework offers characterization of the equilibrium distribution with a small number of scaling indices, which determine macroscopic quantities, thus setting the stage for an equivalence with statistical physics, bridging micro- and macro-economics.
In this study, the fluctuation-dissipation theory is invoked to shed light on input-output interindustrial relations at a macroscopic level by its application to IIP (indices of industrial production) data for Japan. Statistical noise arising from fi
niteness of the time series data is carefully removed by making use of the random matrix theory in an eigenvalue analysis of the correlation matrix; as a result, two dominant eigenmodes are detected. Our previous study successfully used these two modes to demonstrate the existence of intrinsic business cycles. Here a correlation matrix constructed from the two modes describes genuine interindustrial correlations in a statistically meaningful way. Further it enables us to quantitatively discuss the relationship between shipments of final demand goods and production of intermediate goods in a linear response framework. We also investigate distinctive external stimuli for the Japanese economy exerted by the current global economic crisis. These stimuli are derived from residuals of moving average fluctuations of the IIP remaining after subtracting the long-period components arising from inherent business cycles. The observation reveals that the fluctuation-dissipation theory is applicable to an economic system that is supposed to be far from physical equilibrium.
We explore what causes business cycles by analyzing the Japanese industrial production data. The methods are spectral analysis and factor analysis. Using the random matrix theory, we show that two largest eigenvalues are significant. Taking advantage
of the information revealed by disaggregated data, we identify the first dominant factor as the aggregate demand, and the second factor as inventory adjustment. They cannot be reasonably interpreted as technological shocks. We also demonstrate that in terms of two dominant factors, shipments lead production by four months. Furthermore, out-of-sample test demonstrates that the model holds up even under the 2008-09 recession. Because a fall of output during 2008-09 was caused by an exogenous drop in exports, it provides another justification for identifying the first dominant factor as the aggregate demand. All the findings suggest that the major cause of business cycles is real demand shocks.
Heterogeneity of economic agents is emphasized in a new trend of macroeconomics. Accordingly the new emerging discipline requires one to replace the production function, one of key ideas in the conventional economics, by an alternative which can take
an explicit account of distribution of firms production activities. In this paper we propose a new idea referred to as production copula; a copula is an analytic means for modeling dependence among variables. Such a production copula predicts value added yielded by firms with given capital and labor in a probabilistic way. It is thereby in sharp contrast to the production function where the output of firms is completely deterministic. We demonstrate empirical construction of a production copula using financial data of listed firms in Japan. Analysis of the data shows that there are significant correlations among their capital, labor and value added and confirms that the values added are too widely scattered to be represented by a production function. We employ four models for the production copula, that is, trivaria
Our recent study of a nation-wide production network uncovered a community structure, namely how firms are connected by supplier-customer links into tightly-knit groups with high density in intra-groups and with lower connectivity in inter-groups. He
re we propose a method to visualize the community structure by a graph layout based on a physical analogy. The layout can be calculated in a practical computation-time and is possible to be accelerated by a special-purpose device of GRAPE (gravity pipeline) developed for astrophysical N-body simulation. We show that the method successfully identifies the communities in a hierarchical way by applying it to the manufacturing sector comprising tenth million nodes and a half million edges. In addition, we discuss several limitations of this method, and propose a possible way to avoid all those problems.
We present a new approach to understanding credit relationships between commercial banks and quoted firms, and with this approach, examine the temporal change in the structure of the Japanese credit network from 1980 to 2005. At each year, the credit
network is regarded as a weighted bipartite graph where edges correspond to the relationships and weights refer to the amounts of loans. Reduction in the supply of credit affects firms as debtor, and failure of a firm influences banks as creditor. To quantify the dependency and influence between banks and firms, we propose a set of scores of banks and firms, which can be calculated by solving an eigenvalue problem determined by the weight of the credit network. We found that a few largest eigenvalues and corresponding eigenvectors are significant by using a null hypothesis of random bipartite graphs, and that the scores can quantitatively describe the stability or fragility of the credit network during the 25 years.
An agent-based model for firms dynamics is developed. The model consists of firm agents with identical characteristic parameters and a bank agent. Dynamics of those agents is described by their balance sheets. Each firm tries to maximize its expected
profit with possible risks in market. Infinite growth of a firm directed by the profit maximization principle is suppressed by a concept of going concern. Possibility of bankruptcy of firms is also introduced by incorporating a retardation effect of information on firms decision. The firms, mutually interacting through the monopolistic bank, become heterogeneous in the course of temporal evolution. Statistical properties of firms dynamics obtained by simulations based on the model are discussed in light of observations in the real economy.
Labour productivity distribution (dispersion) is studied both theoretically and empirically. Superstatistics is presented as a natural theoretical framework for productivity. The demand index $kappa$ is proposed within this framework as a new busines
s index. Japanese productivity data covering small-to-medium to large firms from 1996 to 2006 is analyzed and the power-law for both firms and workers is established. The demand index $kappa$ is evaluated in the manufacturing sector. A new discovery is reported for the nonmanufacturing (service) sector, which calls for expansion of the superstatistics framework to negative temperature range.
