Extreme wealth inequality from randomness
Abstract
In 2002, Anirban Chakraborti presented numerical experiments demonstrating that in a simple model economy, extreme wealth inequality arose inevitably, as a result of seemingly unbiased randomness. Christophe Chorro pointed out in 2016 that Chakraborti's observation can be explained using the martingale convergence theorem. We give a significantly more elementary explanation, based on the Borel–Cantelli lemma. We also present a second, closely related, result; its proof yields a better intuitive understanding of Chakraborti's observation.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis
Income
Poverty
and Inequality
Probability and Statistical Research
Publication details
- Journal / source
- The Mathematical Gazette
- Volume
- 110
- Issue
- 578
- Pages
- 318–329
- Publication date
- 19 January 2026
- Language
- EN