Power-law distributions: Beyond Paretian fractality

Iddo Eliazar*, Joseph Klafter

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Scopus citations

Abstract

The notion of fractality, in the context of positive-valued probability distributions, is conventionally associated with the class of Paretian probability laws. In this research we show that the Paretian class is merely one out of six classes of probability laws - all equally entitled to be ordained fractal, all possessing a characteristic power-law structure, and all being the unique fixed points of renormalizations acting on the space of positive-valued probability distributions. These six fractal classes are further shown to be one-dimensional functional projections of underlying fractal Poisson processes governed by: (i) a common elemental power-law structure; and (ii) an intrinsic scale which can be either linear, harmonic, log-linear or log-harmonic. This research provides a panoramic and comprehensive view of fractal distributions, backed by a unified theory of their underlying Poissonian fractals.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)155-170
Number of pages16
JournalRisk and Decision Analysis
Volume1
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

Keywords

  • Fréchet
  • Paretian fractality
  • Poisson processes
  • Poissonian fractality and renormalization
  • Weibull and Lévy stable distributions
  • renormalization

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