A simple probabilistic approach of the Yard-Sale model

Abstract

We propose in the present paper a probabilistic approach of the so-called Hayes (2002) Yard-Sale model using classical diffusion approximations of Markov chains. We partly recover, at the very least for small and high frequency transactions, recent results of Boghosian (2014a) and Boghosian et al. (2015) concerning both wealth condensation in the absence of redistribution mechanisms and steady state distributions when a uniform capital taxation is imposed.