![]() ![]() ![]() The factor varies from country to country, but the pattern remains essentially the same. But when Pareto studied the numbers more closely, he discovered that they dwindled in a very special way toward the wealthy end of the curve: Each time you double the amount of wealth, the number of people falls by a constant factor. You would find, as Pareto did, many individuals at the lowest end of the scale and fewer and fewer as you progress along the graph toward higher levels of wealth. Then you count the number of people at many other levels of wealth, both large and small, and you plot the results on a graph. Suppose that in the United States or Cuba or Thailand—or any other country for that matter—you count the number of people worth, say, $10,000. But in 1897, an Italian engineer-turned-economist named Vilfredo Pareto discovered a pattern in the distribution of wealth that appears to be every bit as universal as the laws of thermodynamics or chemistry. And their peoples have different backgrounds, skills, and levels of education. Some rely on agriculture, others on heavy industry, still others on high technology. ![]() Different nations, after all, have different resources and produce different kinds of products. You might expect the balance between the rich and the poor to vary widely from country to country. ![]() One of the most controversial is the distribution of wealth. The economic world is full of patterns, many of which exert a profound influence over society and business. ![]()
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