Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1907.01902

Multiplicity of time scales in climate, matter, life, and economy

Bernhelm Booss-Bavnbek·Rasmus Kristoffer Pedersen·Ulf Rørbæk Pedersen
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

This topic review communicates working experiences regarding interaction of a multiplicity of processes. Our experiences come from climate change modelling, materials science, cell physiology and public health, and macroeconomic modelling. We look at the astonishing advances of recent years in broad-band temporal frequency sampling, multiscale modelling and fast large-scale numerical simulation of complex systems, but also the continuing uncertainty of many science-based results. We describe and analyse properties that depend on the time scale of the measurement; structural instability; tipping points; thresholds; hysteresis; feedback mechanisms with runaways or stabilizations or delays. We point to grave disorientation in statistical sampling, the interpretation of observations and the design of control when neglecting the presence or emergence of multiple characteristic times. We explain what these working experiences can demonstrate for environmental research.

Explore related subjects

econ.GNnlin.PSq-fin.EC

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Bernhelm Booss-Bavnbek, Rasmus Kristoffer Pedersen, Ulf Rørbæk Pedersen. 2020-02-05. Multiplicity of time scales in climate, matter, life, and economy. https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.01902

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Access to Live AI Advice and Behavior Under Risk: An Incentivized Experiment

Generative AI has become an everyday advisor, and the systems people consult are live and interactive, not pre-scripted. We ask whether access to such a system changes behavior under risk. In an incentivized experiment (N = 158), participants made lottery choices with an optional decision aid presented as a conventional pre-written tool, a live one-shot AI, or a live interactive AI they could query, with information format held equivalent across conditions. Risk preferences are elicited via DOSE. We find no evidence that access to a live AI advisor changes risk aversion.

econ.GN↗
arXiv2026

Bricks or Cash? Externalities of Housing Upgrading in High-density Cities

We estimate housing externalities in a high-density city, exploiting the staggered rollout of Singapore's nationwide Main Upgrading Programme for public housing. Controlling for nonrandom neighborhood exposure, we find that upgrading raises treated buildings' prices by 11.5% upon completion and neighboring buildings' resale prices by about 2% within 500 meters, decaying to zero beyond. A model with distance-decaying externalities shows that in dense settings spillovers justify the distortions of in-kind provision; this advantage diminishes and reverses at lower densities. Administrative data on over 2 million residents show that upgrading disproportionately retains older incumbents, suggesting age-specific amenities as an underexplored externality channel.

econ.GN↗
arXiv2026

The Joneses Visit an Economics Lab

Existing literature offers persuasive evidence that individuals care about how their consumption compares to that of peers, and proposes a large variety of explanatory models. The present paper proposes a common framework for many of those models, and compares their ability to predict behavior in a laboratory experiment. We find evidence of Keeping up with the Joneses motivations but also find that conspicuous consumption is enhanced by Veblen motivations arising from peers' ability to observe one's own choice. Among the seven quasi-linear preference models we compare, our data are best explained by a model that contrasts envy and pride (upward vs downward comparisons) using a value function borrowed from Prospect Theory.

econ.GN↗