Maria Augusta Santos

A family-network model for wealth distribution in societies

A model based on first-degree family relations network is used to describe the wealth distribution in societies. The network structure is not a priori introduced in the model, it is generated in parallel with the wealth values through simple and realistic dynamical rules. The model has two main parameters, governing the wealth exchange in the network. Choosing their values realistically, leads to wealth distributions in good agreement with measured data. The cumulative wealth distribution function has an exponential behavior in the low and medium wealth limit, and shows the Pareto-like power-law tail for the upper 5% of the society. The obtained Pareto indexes are in good agreement with the measured ones. The generated family networks also converge to a statistically stable topology with a simple Poissonian degree distribution. On this family network many interesting correlations are studied, and the main factors leading to wealth diversification and the formation of the Pareto law are identified.

Phase transition of a two-dimensional binary spreading model

We investigated the phase transition behavior of a binary spreading process in two dimensions for different particle diffusion strengths (D). We found that N>2 cluster mean-field approximations must be considered to get consistent singular behavior. The N=3,4 approximations result in a continuous phase transition belonging to a single universality class along the D subset (0,1) phase transition line. Large scale simulations of the particle density confirmed mean-field scaling behavior with logarithmic corrections. This is interpreted as numerical evidence supporting the bosonic field theoretical prediction that the upper critical dimension in this model is d(c)=2. The pair density scales in a similar way but with an additional logarithmic factor to the order parameter. At the D=0 end point of the transition line we found directed percolation criticality.

Income distribution patterns from a complete social security database

We analyze the income distribution of employees for 9 consecutive years (2001–2009) using a complete social security database for an economically important district of Romania. The database contains detailed information on more than half million taxpayers, including their monthly salaries from all employers where they worked. Besides studying the characteristic distribution functions in the high and low/medium income limits, the database allows us a detailed dynamical study by following the time-evolution of the taxpayers income. To our knowledge, this is the first extensive study of this kind (a previous Japanese taxpayers survey was limited to two years). In the high income limit we prove once again the validity of Pareto’s law, obtaining a perfect scaling on four orders of magnitude in the rank for all the studied years. The obtained Pareto exponents are quite stable with values around α≈2.5, in spite of the fact that during this period the economy developed rapidly and also a financial-economic crisis hit Romania in 2007–2008. For the low and medium income category we confirmed the exponential-type income distribution. Following the income of employees in time, we have found that the top limit of the income distribution is a highly dynamical region with strong fluctuations in the rank. In this region, the observed dynamics is consistent with a multiplicative random growth hypothesis. Contrarily with previous results obtained for the Japanese employees, we find that the logarithmic growth-rate is not independent of the income.

Vortex dynamics in a three-state model under cyclic dominance.

The evolution of domain structure is investigated in a two-dimensional voter model with three states under cyclic dominance. The study focus on the dynamics of vortices, defined by the points where the three states (domains) meet. We can distinguish vortices and antivortices which walk randomly and annihilate each other. The domain wall motion can create vortex-antivortex pairs at a rate that is increased by the spiral formation due to cyclic dominance. This mechanism is contrasted with a branching annihilating random walk (BARW) in a particle-antiparticle system with density-dependent pair creation rate. Numerical estimates for the critical indices of the vortex density [beta=0.29(4)] and of its fluctuation [gamma=0.34(6)] improve an earlier Monte Carlo study [K. Tainaka and Y. Itoh, Europhys. Lett. 15, 399 (1991)] of the three-state cyclic model in two dimensions.

Short-time dynamics of a two-dimensional majority vote model

Short-time Monte Carlo methods are used to study the nonequilibrium ferromagnetic phase transition in a majority vote model in two dimensions. The existence of an initial critical slip regime is verified. The measured values of dynamic exponents

Relaxation of initial conditions in systems with infinitely many absorbing states

z=2.170(5)

Network Effects in a Human Capital Based Economic Growth Model

and

Ageing in the critical contact process: a Monte Carlo study

\ensuremath{\theta}=0.191(2)

Scaling properties of the cluster distribution of a critical nonequilibrium model

are in excellent agreement with those of the kinetic Ising model universality class.

Cluster statistics for a critical nonequilibrium model

We have investigated the effect of the initial condition on the spreading exponents of the one-dimensional pair contact process (PCP) and threshold transfer process (TTP).The non-order field was found to exhibit critical fluctuations, relaxing to its natural value with the same power-law as the order parameter field. We argue that this slow relaxation, which was not taken into account in earlier studies of these models, is responsible for the continuously changing survival probability exponent. High precision numerical simulations show evidence of a(slight) dependence of the location of the transition point on the initial concentration, in the case of PCP. The damage spreading (DS) point and the spreading exponents coincide with those of the ordinary critical point in both cases.