We analyze the size dependence and temporal stability of firm bankruptcy risk in the US economy by applying Zipf scaling techniques. We focus on a single risk factor - the debt-to-asset ratio R - in order to study the stability of the Zipf distribution of R over time. We find that the Zipf...

Public debt is one of the important economic variables that quantitatively describes a nation's economy. Because bankruptcy is a risk faced even by institutions as large as governments (e.g. Iceland), national debt should be strictly controlled with respect to national wealth. Also, the problem...

Time-dependent economic, technological, and social factors can artificially inflate or deflate quantitative measures for career success. Here we develop and test a statistical method for normalizing career success metrics across time dependent factors. In particular, this method addresses the...

Following a suggestion of Warren Weaver, we extend the Shannon model of communication piecemeal into a complex systems model in which communication is differentiated both vertically and horizontally. This model enables us to bridge the divide between Niklas Luhmann’s theory of the...