Most of the analytical techniques used in the business cycle synchronisation literature rely upon the estimation of an empirical correlation matrix of time series data of macroeconomic aggregates, real GDP usually being the key variable. But the small number of available observations and small...

We describe an exercise of using Big Data to predict the Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index, a widely used indicator of the state of confidence in the US economy. We carry out the exercise from a pure ex ante perspective. We use the methodology of algorithmic text analysis of an archive of...

Self-similar models are largely used to describe the extinction rate of biological species. In this paper we analyse the extinction rate of firms in eight OECD countries. Firms are classified by industrial sectors and sizes. We find that while a power-law distribution with exponent close to 2...

Power law distributions of macroscopic observables are ubiquitous in both the natural and social sciences. They are indicative of correlated, cooperative phenomena between groups of interacting agents at the microscopic level. In this paper, we argue that when one is considering aggregate...

The standard socio-economic model (SSSM) postulates very considerable cognitive powers on the part of its agents. They are able to gather all relevant information in any given situation, and to take the optimal decision on the basis of it, given their tastes and preferences. This behavioural...

We consider in this paper the distribution of the cumulative size of recessions in 17 capitalist countries over the period 1871–1994, using data on annual percentage changes in real GDP. A recession is defined as a year in which GDP growth is negative, and the cumulative change is the change...

The degree of convergence of the business cycles of the economies of the European Union (EU) is a key policy issue. In particular, a substantial degree of convergence is needed if the European Central Bank is to be capable of setting a monetary policy which is appropriate to the stage of the...

Econophysics has already made a number of important empirical contributions to our understanding of the social and economic world. These fall mainly into the areas of finance and industrial economics, where in each case there is a large amount of reasonably well-defined data.