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Science strengthened banks — but how long will stability last?

The results of influential studies are being used to monitor the world’s banking system amid continuing concerns over bank failures.
  1. Mark Buchanan

    1. Mark Buchanan has written many books about network effects. He is based in Abergavenny, UK.

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Twelve years ago, an unusual study used insights from ecology and infectious-disease research to show that the failure of ‘superspreader’ banks would rock the whole financial system1. The work, titled ‘Systemic risks in banking ecosystems’, demonstrated that banks are interconnected like living things. A series of notable banking failures in the past few weeks have renewed fears that the financial ecosystem is at risk.

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Nature 616, 642 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-01291-8

References

  1. Haldane, A. & May, R. Nature 469, 351–355 (2011).

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  2. Lucas, D. Annual Review of Financial Economics 11, 85–108 (2019).

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  3. Bales, S. & Berghof, H. P. Preprint at SSRN https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4398782 (2023).

  4. Battiston, S., Puliga, M. & Kaushik, R. et al. Sci. Rep. 2, 541 (2012).

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