New ways of doing things often get started through the actions of a few innovators, then diffuse rapidly as more and more people come into contact with prior adopters in their social network. Much of the literature focuses on the speed of diffusion as a function of the network topology. In...

This paper studies the spread of losses and defaults in financial networks with two interrelated features: collateral requirements and alternative contract termination rules, which control access to collateral. When collateral is committed to a firm's counter-parties, a solvent firm may default...

This paper studies the spread of losses and defaults in financial networks with two important features: collateral requirements and alternative contract termination rules in bankruptcy. When collateral is committed to a firm's counterparties, a solvent firm may default if it lacks sufficient...