Charlie Brummitt
Columbia University
Thursday 11th Sept, 16:00-17:30 INET Oxford Meeting Room (ground floor) INET Oxford
Eagle House, Walton Well Road, OX2 6ED
ABSTRACT:
I will begin by presenting a model of the interaction between banks and outside investors in which the ability of banks to issue “inside money” (short-term liabilities believed to be convertible into cur- rency at par) can generate a collapse in asset prices and widespread bank insolvency. This collapse, a “regime shift” given by a saddle-node bifurcation, results from banks seeking to maintain a tolerably low chance of insolvency. Capital requirements and actions by a central bank to coordinate beliefs on the “good” equilibrium can prevent crises in this model. Time permitting, I will also summarize some followup work on regime shifts in coupled systems, examples of which include not only finan- cial crises (as in the previous model) but also technology adoption, social unrest, and rapid changes in the biosphere.