We study the problems related to the estimation of the Gini index in presence of a fat-tailed data generating process, i.e. one in the stable distribution class with finite mean but infinite variance (i.e. with tail index α ∈ (1, 2)). We show that, in such a case, the Gini coefficient cannot...

Statistical analyses on actual data depict operational risk as an extremely heavy-tailed phenomenon, able to generate losses so extreme as to suggest the use of infinite-mean models. But no loss can actually destroy more than the entire value of a bank or of a company, and this upper bound...

We examine statistical pictures of violent conflicts over the last 2000 years, finding techniques for dealing with incompleteness and unreliability of historical data.We introduce a novel approach to apply extreme value theory to fat-tailed variables that have a remote, but nonetheless finite...

Where the problem is not expert underestimation of randomness, but more: the tools themselves used in regression analyses and similar methods underestimate fat tails, hence the randomness in the data. We should avoid imparting psychological explanations to errors in the use of statistical methods

Finance professionals, who are regularly exposed to notions of volatility, seem to confuse mean absolute deviation with standard deviation, causing an underestimation of 25% with theoretical Gaussian variables. In some fat tailed markets the underestimation can be up to 90%. The mental...

Unverblümt und respektlos geisselt Taleb die Entwicklungen, die unserer Zivilisation immanent zu sein scheinen: Verantwortungslosigkeit, Falschheit, Unterdrückung des Individuums, Sein und Schein usw. Eigentlich ist dieses Buch des New Yorker Professors der philosophisch-ethische Unterbau zum...