Related papers: Big is Fragile: An Attempt at Theorizing Scale
Many studies have analyzed how variability in reproductive success affects fitness. However, each study tends to focus on a particular problem, leaving unclear the overall structure of variability in populations. This fractured conceptual…
Recent developments in the global liberalization of equity and currency markets, coupled to advances in trading technologies, are making markets increasingly interdependent. This increased fluidity raises questions about the stability of…
The fragility index is a clinically motivated metric designed to supplement the $p$ value during hypothesis testing. The measure relies on two pillars: selecting cases to have their outcome modified and modifying the outcomes. The measure…
This article is a prologue to the article "Why Markets are Inefficient: A Gambling 'Theory' of Financial Markets for Practitioners and Theorists." It presents important background for that article --- why gambling is important, even…
We investigate topologically biased failure in scale-free networks with degree distribution $P(k) \propto k^{-\gamma}$. The probability $p$ that an edge remains intact is assumed to depend on the degree $k$ of adjacent nodes $i$ and $j$…
Sharding distributed ledgers is a promising on-chain solution for scaling blockchains but lacks formal grounds, nurturing skepticism on whether such complex systems can scale blockchains securely. We fill this gap by introducing the first…
It is ``folklore'' that the solution to a set reachability problem for a dynamical system is only noncomputable because of non-robustness reasons. A robustness condition that can be imposed on a dynamical system is the requirement of the…
Optimization methods are used to determine equilibria of investment in cryptocurrencies. The basic assumptions involve existence of a core group (the "wealthy") that fears the loss of substantial assets through government seizure.…
Social Security and other public policies can be viewed as a series of cash in and outflows that depend on parameters such as the age distribution of the population and the retirement age. Given forecasts of these parameters, policies can…
It is argued that the occurrence of disproportionately ("un-natural") large (or small) numbers, as well as deep cancellations, are comparatively natural traits of the way Nature is geared to operate in most complex systems. The idea is…
We present a dynamical theory of asset price bubbles that exhibits the appearance of bubbles and their subsequent crashes. We show that when speculative trends dominate over fundamental beliefs, bubbles form, leading to the growth of asset…
Despite several scientific achievements in the last years, there are still a lot of IT projects that fail. Researchers found that one out of five IT-projects run out of time, budget or value. Major reasons for this failure are unexpected…
Maximizing robustness and minimizing cost are common objectives in the design of infrastructure networks. However, most infrastructure networks evolve and operate in a highly decentralized fashion, which may significantly impact the…
In a previous paper, we applied a field formalism to analyze capital allocation and accumulation within a microeconomic framework of investors and firms. The financial connections were modeled by a field of stakes, representing the links…
Prediction of events is the challenge in many different disciplines, from meteorology to finance; the more this task is difficult, the more a system is {\it complex}. Nevertheless, even according to this restricted definition, a general…
With the growing attention and investment in recent AI approaches such as large language models, the narrative that the larger the AI system the more valuable, powerful and interesting it is is increasingly seen as common sense. But what is…
Power grids exhibit patterns of reaction to outages similar to complex networks. Blackout sequences follow power laws, as complex systems operating near a critical point. Here, the tolerance of electric power grids to both accidental and…
The international financial system is currently not yet prepared to face a foreseeable crisis mainly motivated by the dichotomy between the real economy and the virtual economy. Skepticism is widespread even when it comes to investments in…
We study the range of prices at which a rational agent should contemplate transacting a financial contract outside a given securities market. Trading is subject to nonproportional transaction costs and portfolio constraints and full…
Following the financial crisis of 2007-2008, a deep analogy between the origins of instability in financial systems and complex ecosystems has been pointed out: in both cases, topological features of network structures influence how easily…