We will review some of the major results in random graphs and some of the more challenging open problems. We will cover algorithmic and structural questions. We will touch on newer models, including those related to the WWW.

Random graphs

Attachment--and loss.

Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity

The four Visegrad states — Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia (until 1993 Czechoslovakia) and Hungary — form a compact area between Germany and Austria in the west and the states of the former USSR in the east. They are bounded by the Baltic in the north and the Danube river in the south. They are cut by the Sudeten and Carpathian mountain ranges, which divide Poland off from the other states. Poland is an extension of the North European plain and like the latter is drained by rivers that flow from south to north west — the Oder, the Vlatava and the Elbe, the Vistula and the Bug. The Danube is the great exception, flowing from its source eastward, turning through two 90-degree turns to end up in the Black Sea, forming the barrier and often the political frontier between central Europe and the Balkans. Hungary to the east of the Danube is also an open plain. The region is historically and culturally part of western Europe, but its eastern Marches now represents a vital strategic zone between Germany and the core of the European Union to the west and the Russian zone to the east.

Economy and Society

The Rise of the Creative Class

The size distribution of business firms is explained using number and size of firms' constituent components. It is a lognormal distribution multiplied by a stretching factor which can lead to a Pareto upper tail. This result is confirmed empirically.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1008446_code827556.pdf?abstractid=1008446

On the Size Distribution of Business Firms

https://polymer.bu.edu/hes/articles/gprs08.pdf

On the size distribution of business firms

We refer to the framework developed by Ijiri and Simon (1977) and to the notion of independent submarkets (Sutton 1998) to provide a simple candidate explanation for the shape of the firm growth distribution based on a model of proportional growth at the level of both the introduction of new products by firms and their size dynamics. We exploit the features of a unique longitudinal data set which covers the entire distribution of products and firms in the worldwide pharmaceutical industry to test the model at different levels of aggregation as well as at different time lags. Econometric investigations show that the model's predictions are in good agreement with empirical evidence. (JEL: L11, L65)

/pdf/the-growth-of-business-firms-facts-and-theory-3p16pq5aqm.pdf

The growth of business firms: facts and theory

http://sites.uclouvain.be/econ/DP/IRES/2006-31.pdf

On technical change in the elasticities of resource inputs

This paper follows Jones (2005) in his approach to deriving the global production function from microfoundations. His framework is generalized by allowing for dependence between the Pareto distributions of labor- and capital-augmenting developments. Using the Clayton copula family to capture this dependence, we derive a "Clayton-Pareto" class of production functions that nests both the Cobb-Douglas and the CES. Em- bedding the resultant production function in a neoclassical growth frame- work, we draw conclusions for the long-run direction of technical change. Jones' result of Cobb-Douglas global production functions and purely labor- augmenting technical change hinges on the assumption of independence of marginal Pareto distributions. In our more general case, the shape of local production functions matters for the shape of the global production function, and technical change augments both factors in the long run. Furthermore, the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor may exceed unity and thus yield endogenous growth.

/pdf/a-new-class-of-production-functions-and-an-argument-against-3a01odt8w3.pdf

Jakub Growiec

Papers

On the Size Distribution of Business Firms

On the size distribution of business firms

The growth of business firms: facts and theory

On technical change in the elasticities of resource inputs

A new class of production functions and an argument against purely labor-augmenting technical change