Related papers: Spreadsheets and the Financial Collapse

There is an overlooked iceberg of problems in end user computing. Spreadsheets are developed by people who are very skilled in their main job function, be it finance, procurement, or production planning, but often have had no formal…

Fifteen years of research studies have concluded unanimously that spreadsheet errors are both common and non-trivial. Now we must seek ways to reduce spreadsheet errors. Several approaches have been suggested, some of which are promising…

Thanks to their flexibility and capability to perform different tasks and organize data in the best form and format, spreadsheets are widely used in different organizations and by different end users. Many business organizations rely on…

The use of spreadsheets is widespread. Be it in business, finance, engineering or other areas, spreadsheets are created for their flexibility and ease to quickly model a problem. Very often they evolve from simple prototypes to…

The spreadsheet paradigm has some unique risks and challenges that are not present in more traditional development technologies. Many of the recent advances in other branches of software development have bypassed spreadsheets and…

Research on spreadsheet errors began over fifteen years ago. During that time, there has been ample evidence demonstrating that spreadsheet errors are common and nontrivial. Quite simply, spreadsheet error rates are comparable to error…

Spreadsheets are known to be error-prone. Over the last decade, research has been done to determine the causes of the high rate of errors in spreadsheets. This paper examines the added value of a spreadsheet tool (PerfectXL) that visualizes…

In this paper, we propose a dynamical model to capture cascading failures among interconnected organizations in the global financial system. Failures can take the form of bankruptcies, defaults, and other insolvencies. The network that…

A common application of spreadsheets is the development of models that deliver projections of the future financial statements of companies established to pursue ventures that are subject to project financing. A survey of 11 such…

The question of how to stabilize financial systems has attracted considerable attention since the global financial crisis of 2007-2009. Recently, Beale et al. ("Individual versus systemic risk and the regulator's dilemma", Proc Natl Acad…

This paper introduces a novel framework to study default dependence and systemic risk in a financial network that evolves over time. We analyse several indicators of risk, and develop a new latent space model to assess the health of key…

This brief paper outlines how spreadsheets were used as one of the vehicles for John Rusnak's fraud and the revenue control lessons this case gives us.

Trust lies at the crux of most economic transactions, with credit markets being a notable example. Drawing on insights from the literature on coordination games and network growth, we develop a simple model to clarify how trust breaks down…

The global crisis of 2008 provoked a heightened interest among scientists to study the phenomenon, its propagation and negative consequences. The process of modelling the spread of a virus is commonly used in epidemiology. Conceptually, the…

Few major commercial or economic decisions are made today which are not underpinned by analysis using spreadsheets. It is virtually impossible to avoid making mistakes during their drafting and some of these errors remain, unseen and…

The global financial system has become highly connected and complex. Has been proven in practice that existing models, measures and reports of financial risk fail to capture some important systemic dimensions. Only lately, advisory boards…

Excessive leverage, i.e. the abuse of debt financing, is considered one of the primary factors in the default of financial institutions. Systemic risk results from correlations between individual default probabilities that cannot be…

The spreadsheet has been used by the business community for many years and yet still raises a number of significant concerns. As educators our concern is to try to develop the students skills in both the development of spreadsheets and in…

Spreadsheet users regularly deal with uncertainty in their data, for example due to errors and estimates. While an insight into data uncertainty can help in making better informed decisions, prior research suggests that people often use…

One of the problems reported by researchers and auditors in the field of spreadsheet risks is that of getting and keeping managements attention to the problem. Since 1996, the Information Systems Audit & Control Foundation and the IT…