Moment Distributions in Economics: An Exposition

SUMMARY In the social sciences, particularly in economics, many summaries of size distributions, such as the Herfindahl index, are used which are not based on statistical distribution theory. Each measure is regarded as a unique contribution. The present paper expresses the most common of these ad hoc measures in terms of the moments of moment distributions, which are firmly rooted in distribution theory and which are well established in the small particle statistics of physics. That is, these ad hoc measures are governed by the moments of the underlying size distribution and do not add to the knowledge provided by the classical statistical analysis of economic size distributions.

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