Are expansions and recessions more likely to end as their magnitude increases? In this paper we apply parametric hazard models to investigate this issue in a sample of 16 countries from 1881 to 2000. For the total sample we find evidence of positive magnitude dependence for recessions, while for...

Following the statistical mechanics methodology, firstly introduced in macroeconomics by Aoki [1996,2002], we provide some insights to the well known works of Greenwald and Stiglitz [1990, 1993]. Specifically, we reach analytically a closed form solution of their models overcoming the...

By employing exhaustive lists of large firms in European countries, we show that the upper-tail of the distribution of firm size can be fitted with a power-law (Pareto-Zipf law), and that in this region the growth rate of each firm is independent of the firm's size (Gibrat's law of proportionate...