INEQUALITY IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF INCOMES - A MICROSTATISTICAL APPROACH BORROWED FROM STATISTICAL THERMODYNAMICS

Points out that differences in the background of the working populatio n, are often made responsible for the observed inequality of income di stribution. Explores whether the observed distribution in incomes in c ountries such as the Federal Republic of Germany (West and East), Grea t Britain, Sweden, the United States and Brazil could not be the resul t of a statistical distribution process in which households participat e. Recalls the early work in statistical thermodynamics by Boltzmann a nd Maxwell, who studied the distribution of energy among an ensemble o f identical molecules, and which showed that not all molecules hold th e same energy, but rather that the distribution has an exponential fal l-off character, with most molecules being in the lower energy bracket . Adapts the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution to incomes, and transforms these distributions into well-known Lorenz graphs, and obtains a perf ect match for each examined country. Suggests that, as the distributio ns can be directly related to their corresponding statistical weights, and as their logarithms are proportional to entropy in statistical th ermodynamics, it could be shown that the unequal income distribution h as a higher entropy, and therefore is more stable than the correspondi ng low entropy distribution resulting from Boulding's principle of equ al advantage where all households earn the same income. Supposes that neither of the two extreme stand-points to explain the inequality of i ncomes can lead to a totally satisfactory explanation. Proposes that e volutionary strategies may be an interesting lead to follow lip in mor e detail.