Received: 23 February 2009. Accepted: 6 May 2009.

ABSTRACT

In this work we use an inelastic scattering process of particles to propose a model able to reproduce the salient features of the wealth distribution in an economy by including taxes to each trading process and redistributing that collected among the population according to a given criterion. Additionally, we show that different optimal levels of taxes may exist depending on the redistribution criterion.

KEY WORDS

wealth distribution, inelastic collisions

CLASSIFICATION

JEL:	H21, H23, H30
PACS:	51.10+y, 51.30.+i