The accumulative law and its probability model: an extension of the Pareto distribution and the log-normal distribution

Abstract

The divergence between the Pareto distribution and the log-normal distribution has been observed persistently over the past couple of decades in complex network research, economics, and social sciences. To address this, we here propose an approach termed as the accumulative law and its related probability model. We show that the resulting accumulative distribution has properties that are akin to both the Pareto distribution and the log-normal distribution, which leads to a broad range of applications in modelling and fitting real data. We present all the details of the accumulative law, describe the properties of the distribution, as well as the allocation and the accumulation of variables. We also show how the proposed accumulative law can be applied to generate complex networks, to describe the accumulation of personal wealth, and to explain the scaling of internet traffic across different domains.