Politicians world-wide frequently promise a better life for their citizens. We find that the probability that a country will increase its {it per capita} GDP ({it gdp}) rank within a decade follows an exponential distribution with decay constant $lam
bda = 0.12$. We use the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) and the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) and find that the distribution of change in CPI (GCI) rank follows exponential functions with approximately the same exponent as $lambda$, suggesting that the dynamics of {it gdp}, CPI, and GCI may share the same origin. Using the GCI, we develop a new measure, which we call relative competitiveness, to evaluate an economys competitiveness relative to its {it gdp}. For all European and EU countries during the 2008-2011 economic downturn we find that the drop in {it gdp} in more competitive countries relative to {it gdp} was substantially smaller than in relatively less competitive countries, which is valuable information for policymakers.
We propose a modified time lag random matrix theory in order to study time lag cross-correlations in multiple time series. We apply the method to 48 world indices, one for each of 48 different countries. We find long-range power-law cross-correlation
s in the absolute values of returns that quantify risk, and find that they decay much more slowly than cross-correlations between the returns. The magnitude of the cross-correlations constitute bad news for international investment managers who may believe that risk is reduced by diversifying across countries. We find that when a market shock is transmitted around the world, the risk decays very slowly. We explain these time lag cross-correlations by introducing a global factor model (GFM) in which all index returns fluctuate in response to a single global factor. For each pair of individual time series of returns, the cross-correlations between returns (or magnitudes) can be modeled with the auto-correlations of the global factor returns (or magnitudes). We estimate the global factor using principal component analysis, which minimizes the variance of the residuals after removing the global trend. Using random matrix theory, a significant fraction of the world index cross-correlations can be explained by the global factor, which supports the utility of the GFM. We demonstrate applications of the GFM in forecasting risks at the world level, and in finding uncorrelated individual indices. We find 10 indices are practically uncorrelated with the global factor and with the remainder of the world indices, which is relevant information for world managers in reducing their portfolio risk. Finally, we argue that this general method can be applied to a wide range of phenomena in which time series are measured, ranging from seismology and physiology to atmospheric geophysics.
We analyze the size dependence and temporal stability of firm bankruptcy risk in the US economy by applying Zipf scaling techniques. We focus on a single risk factor-the debt-to-asset ratio R-in order to study the stability of the Zipf distribution o
f R over time. We find that the Zipf exponent increases during market crashes, implying that firms go bankrupt with larger values of R. Based on the Zipf analysis, we employ Bayess theorem and relate the conditional probability that a bankrupt firm has a ratio R with the conditional probability of bankruptcy for a firm with a given R value. For 2,737 bankrupt firms, we demonstrate size dependence in assets change during the bankruptcy proceedings. Prepetition firm assets and petition firm assets follow Zipf distributions but with different exponents, meaning that firms with smaller assets adjust their assets more than firms with larger assets during the bankruptcy process. We compare bankrupt firms with nonbankrupt firms by analyzing the assets and liabilities of two large subsets of the US economy: 2,545 Nasdaq members and 1,680 New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) members. We find that both assets and liabilities follow a Pareto distribution. The finding is not a trivial consequence of the Zipf scaling relationship of firm size quantified by employees-although the market capitalization of Nasdaq stocks follows a Pareto distribution, the same distribution does not describe NYSE stocks. We propose a coupled Simon model that simultaneously evolves both assets and debt with the possibility of bankruptcy, and we also consider the possibility of firm mergers.
