Abstract
Only recently a new stylised fact of economic growth
has been introduced, the bimodal shape of the
distribution of per capita income or the twin-peaked
nature of that distribution. Drawing on the
Summers/Hestons Penn World Table 5.6 (1991) we
determine kernel density distributions which are able
to detect the aforementioned twin peaked structure and
show that the world income distribution starting with
an unimodal structure in 1960 evolves subsequently to a
bimodal or twin-peak structure. This empirical results
can be explained theoretically by a synergetic model
based on the master equation approach as in
Pyka/Kruger/Cantner (1999). This paper attempts to
extend this discussion by taking the reverse procedure,
that is to find empirical evidence for the working
mechanism of the theoretical model. We determine
empirically the transition rates used in the synergetic
approach by applying alternatively NLS to chosen
functional forms and genetic programming in order to
determine the functional forms and the parameters
simultaneously. Using the so determined transition
rates in the synergetic model leads in both cases to
the emergence of the bimodal distribution, which,
however, is only in the latter case a persistent
phenomenon.
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