The aim of this paper is to investigate how the capacity of an economic system to absorb shocks depends on the specific pattern of interconnections established among financial firms. The key trade-off at work is between the risk-sharing gains enjoyed by firms when they become more interconnected...

We investigate the trade-off, arising in financial networks, between higher risksharing and greater exposure to contagion when the connectivity increases. We find that with shock distributions displaying "fat" tails, extreme segmentation into small components is optimal, while minimal...

We propose a stylized model of a problem-solving organization whose internal communication structure is given by a fixed network. Problems arrive randomly anywhere in this network and must find their way to their respective "specialized solvers" by relying on local information alone. The...

The aim of this paper is to investigate how the capacity of an economic system to absorb shocks depends on the specific pattern of interconnections established among financial firms. The key trade-off at work is between the risk-sharing gains enjoyed by firms when they become more interconnected...

We propose a stylized model of a problem-solving organization whose internal communication structure is given by a fixed network. Problems arrive randomly anywhere in this network and must find their way to their respective "specialized solvers" by relying on local information alone. The...

We investigate the trade-off between the risk-sharing gains enjoyed by more interconnected firms and the costs resulting from an increased risk exposure. We find that when the shock distribution displays "fat" tails, extreme segmentation into small components is optimal, while minimal...

We propose a stylized model of a problem-solving organization whose internal communication structure is given by a fixed network. Problems arrive randomly anywhere in this network and must find their way to their respective “specialized solvers” by relying on local information alone. The...

We investigate the trade-off between the risk-sharing gains enjoyed by more interconnected firms and the costs resulting from an increased risk exposure. We find that when the shock distribution displays “fat” tails, extreme segmentation into small components is optimal, while minimal...

We investigate the trade-off between the risk-sharing gains enjoyed by more interconnected firms and the costs resulting from an increased risk exposure. We find that when the shock distribution displays “fat” tails, extreme segmentation into small components is optimal, while minimal...