Systemic risk, in a complex system with several interrelated variables, such as a financial market, is quantifiable from the multivariate probability distribution describing the reciprocal influence between the system's variables. The effect of stress on the system is reflected by the change in...

The U.S. government's failure to provide oversight and prudent regulation of the financial markets, together with excessive risk taking by some financial institutions, pushed the world financial system to the brink of systemic failure in 2008. As a consequence of this near catastrophe, both...