The scientific study of complex systems has transformed a wide range of disciplines in recent years, enabling researchers in both the natural and social sciences to model and predict phenomena as diverse as earthquakes, global warming, demographic patterns, financial crises, and the failure of materials. In this book, Didier Sornette boldly applies his varied experience in these areas to propose a simple, powerful, and general theory of how, why, and when stock markets crash. Most attempts to explain market failures seek to pinpoint triggering mechanisms that occur hours, days, or weeks before the collapse. Sornette proposes a radically different view: the underlying cause can be sought months and even years before the abrupt, catastrophic event in the build-up of cooperative speculation, which often translates into an accelerating rise of the market price, otherwise known as a 'bubble'.Anchoring his sophisticated, step-by-step analysis in leading-edge physical and statistical modeling techniques, he unearths remarkable insights and some predictions - among them, that the 'end of the growth era' will occur around 2050. Sornette probes major historical precedents, from the decades-long 'tulip mania' in the Netherlands that wilted suddenly in 1637 to the South Sea Bubble that ended with the first huge market crash in England in 1720, to the Great Crash of October 1929 and Black Monday in 1987, to cite just a few.He concludes that most explanations other than cooperative self-organization fail to account for the subtle bubbles by which the markets lay the groundwork for catastrophe. Any investor or investment professional who seeks a genuine understanding of looming financial disasters should read this book. Physicists, geologists, biologists, economists, and others will welcome "Why Stock Markets Crash" as a highly original 'scientific tale', as Sornette aptly puts it, of the exciting and sometimes fearsome - but no longer quite so unfathomable - world of stock markets.

作者简介

迪迪埃•索尔内特 （Didier Sornette） 瑞士苏黎世联邦理工学院和瑞士金融研究院教授，研究市场泡沫的先驱者，他曾成功预测2008年石油泡沫破裂、2009年上证指数泡沫破裂等多次市场巨变。他的研究包括复杂系统中危机和极端事件的预测、金融学与经济学的泡沫与崩盘、投资组合优化、市场微观结构、复杂系统与时空结构的模式形成、动态系统理论、时间序列分析与预测工具。索尔内特教授发表了800余篇论文，出版了7本专著，其作品的被引用次数超过35 000次。

译者简介

闫晚丰博士 毕业于瑞士苏黎世联邦理工学院，师从本书作者。目前任职于瑞士某对冲基金，也是南方科技大学兼职教授。主要研究领域为金融泡沫的诊断与预测。

林黎博士 毕业于北京航空航天大学。瑞士苏黎世联邦理工学院Risk-Center客座教授。目前任教于华东理工大学商学院，研究领域为金融泡沫和系统性风险。

柯冬敏博士 上海财经大学经济学学士和硕士，美国威斯康星大学金融学博士。曾在美国数所大学商学院执教。