We argue that the present crisis and stalling economy that have been ongoing since 2007 are rooted in the delusionary belief in policies based on a "perpetual money machine" type of thinking. We document strong evidence that, since the early 1980s, consumption has been increasingly funded by...

Using the mechanics of creep in material sciences as a metaphor, we present a general framework to understand the evolution of financial, economic and social systems and to construct scenarios for the future. In a nutshell, highly non-linear out-of-equilibrium systems subjected to exogenous...

We analyze the dynamics, and the spatial distribution of nighttime light using the open source data of the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program of the U.S. Air Force. A detailed analysis of the relevant literature and our study of the database allow us to set up a best-practice for the use...

We argue that the present crisis and stalling economy continuing since 2007 have clear origins, namely in the delusionary belief in the merits of policies based on a “perpetual money machine” type of thinking. Indeed, we document strong evidence that, since the early 1980s, consumption has...

The scientific study of complex systems has transformed a wide range of disciplines in recent years, enabling researchers in both the natural and social sciences to model and predict phenomena as diverse as earthquakes, global warming, demographic patterns, financial crises, and the failure of...

Humankind is confronted with a "nuclear stewardship curse'', facing the prospect of needing to manage nuclear products over long time scales in the face of the short-time scales of human polities. I propose a super Manhattan-type effort to rejuvenate the nuclear energy industry to overcome the...

The scientific study of complex systems has transformed a wide range of disciplines in recent years, enabling researchers in both the natural and social sciences to model and predict phenomena as diverse as earthquakes, global warming, demographic patterns, financial crises, and the failure of...

We augment the existing literature using the Log-Periodic Power Law Singular (LPPLS) structures in the log-price dynamics to diagnose financial bubbles by providing three main innovations. First, we introduce the quantile regression to the LPPLS detection problem. This allows us to disentangle...