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Self-organized critical system with no stationary attractor state
1The Niels Bohr Institute, Blegdamsvej 17, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Summary
This study introduces a simple economic model that self-organizes to an asymptote, exhibiting constant deflation and power-law avalanches. This demonstrates self-organized criticality in systems driven to asymptotes, not just fixed points.
Area of Science:
- Economic modeling
- Complex systems science
- Statistical physics
Background:
- Traditional models often assume systems reach stable attractor states.
- Self-organized criticality (SOC) describes systems naturally evolving to a critical state.
- Previous SOC research primarily focused on systems driven to fixed points.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a simple economic model with interacting producers and consumers.
- To investigate the system's behavior under extreme dynamics.
- To explore whether SOC can occur in systems driven to asymptotes.
Main Methods:
- Developed a simple agent-based model of an economy.
- Simulated the model under extreme dynamic conditions.
- Analyzed the system's emergent behavior, focusing on activity patterns and size distributions.
Main Results:
- The model self-organized to an asymptote, not an attractor state.
- The system exhibited a constant rate of deflation.
- Observed avalanches of economic activity with power-law distributed sizes, indicative of criticality.
Conclusions:
- Self-organized criticality can emerge in systems driven to asymptotes, expanding the known conditions for SOC.
- Economic systems, even simple ones, can exhibit complex critical behaviors.
- The findings suggest a broader applicability of SOC theory to economic and other complex systems.