Following Alfarano et al. [Estimation of agent-based models: the case of an asymmetric herding model, Comput. Econ. 26 (2005) 19–49; Excess volatility and herding in an artificial financial market: analytical approach and estimation, in: W. Franz, H. Ramser, M. Stadler (Eds.),...

A Laplace distribution for firm profit rates (or returns on assets) can be obtained through the sum of many independent shocks if the number of shocks is Poisson distributed. Interpreting this as a linear chain of events, we generalize the process to a hierarchical network structure. The...