Join us on Tuesday, October 22nd from 11:30AM-1:00PM in Weiser 747 for our Seminar Series featuring Conrad Kosowsky. Conrad is a current graduate student and instructor at UM in the field of Complex Systems.

Abstract
This talk will focus mostly on my work on U.S. incomes. I show that U.S. incomes follow a one-parameter family of probability distributions over more than 50 years of data. I compare statistical models of income, and highlight the inverse-gamma distribution as a parsimonious model that matches data particularly well and has straightforward theoretical interpretations. However, despite having relatively few parameters, the inverse-gamma distribution still overfits income data. I establish a linear relationship between parameter estimates, and a one-dimensional model emerges naturally when I exploit this relationship. I conclude with theoretical remarks about the model and about the Gini coefficient. Time permitting, I will briefly discuss my other research interests including Nash equilibrium existence and theory of deadlines and procrastination.