Relatori: Federico Benassi dell'Università di Napoli (Federico II), Alessia Naccarato dell'Università di Roma 3
Luogo e Data: Aula 201, Dipartimento di Economia il giorno 9 Febbraio 2024 Ore 12:00 - 13:00
Abstract: The ecologist Lionel Roy Taylor, studying the relationship between the variance and the average density of non-human populations developed a formalization of this relationship, which later became known as Taylor’s power law (Tpl). This ‘law’ states that the variance of the population density varies as the power function of the mean population density. Tpl can be temporal or spatial. In temporal Tpl, the mean and the variance are first computed at locations adjacent to each other over time. Then the hypothesis that these variances are power functions of the means is tested. In spatial Tpl, at a single date, the variance computed at multiple locations is a power function of the mean computed over those multiple locations at dates close to the reference date. Spatial Tpl describes the temporal trend in the spatial variability of the density as the mean varies. Tpl has found a vast amount of applications in many fields of study but, quite surprsingly, only recently it has been used in demography. The seminar proposes an oveview on the Tpl and its recently application to human popualtion studies explaining the different approaches applied, the current devlopments and the future challenges.