A Survey into Evidence of Zipf’s Law among Indian Socio-Economic Variables

Abstract

Zipf’s Law is an empirical phenomenon observed in many natural systems. The distribution of a physical variable demonstrates sharp rise at the right tail under this law. The occurrence of this law is pervasive among the physical variables. Econophysics, a discipline named so by Eugene H. Stanley, studies the application of physical principles among variables related to human action mostly related to socio-economic variables. This paper surveys the studies on the existence of Zipf’s law among Indian socio-economic variables. We present the evidence on economic variables, in particular income, wealth and consumption distribution. The other socio-economic variable of our choice is city size distribution. In all cases, the Zipf’s law is established with different values for the Pareto exponent.