Trust is a collective, self-fulfilling phenomenon that suggests analogies with phase transitions. We introduce a stylized model for the build-up and collapse of trust in networks, which generically displays a first order transition. The basic assumption of our model is that whereas trust begets...

Disasters remain among the most critical events which impact residents and their neighborhoods; they have killed far more individuals than high salience issues such as terrorism. Unfortunately, disaster recovery programs run by the United States and foreign governments have not been updated to...

The purpose of the current paper is to investigate the possible relationship between fiscal discipline and social capital in EU member states during the last economic crisis and recovery, along with the assessment of the initial welfare effects of fiscal stimulus measures. Preliminary results...