Ecosystems perspective on financial networks: Diagnostic tools

Abstract

The world economy consists of highly interconnected and interdependent commercial and financial networks. Here, we develop temporal and structural network tools to analyze the state of the economy and the financial markets. Our analysis indicates that a strong clustering can be a warning sign. Reduction in diversity, which was an essential aspect of the dynamics surrounding the financial markets crisis of 2008, is seen as a key emergent feature arising naturally from the evolutionary and adaptive dynamics inherent to the financial markets. Similarly, collusion amongst construction firms in a number of regions in Japan in the 2000s can be identified with the formation of clusters of anomalous highly connected companies. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.