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.

作者簡介

迪迪埃•索爾內特 （Didier Sornette） 瑞士蘇黎世聯邦理工學院和瑞士金融研究院教授，研究市場泡沫的先驅者，他曾成功預測2008年石油泡沫破裂、2009年上證指數泡沫破裂等多次市場巨變。他的研究包括復雜係統中危機和極端事件的預測、金融學與經濟學的泡沫與崩盤、投資組閤優化、市場微觀結構、復雜係統與時空結構的模式形成、動態係統理論、時間序列分析與預測工具。索爾內特教授發錶瞭800餘篇論文，齣版瞭7本專著，其作品的被引用次數超過35 000次。

譯者簡介

閆晚豐博士 畢業於瑞士蘇黎世聯邦理工學院，師從本書作者。目前任職於瑞士某對衝基金，也是南方科技大學兼職教授。主要研究領域為金融泡沫的診斷與預測。

林黎博士 畢業於北京航空航天大學。瑞士蘇黎世聯邦理工學院Risk-Center客座教授。目前任教於華東理工大學商學院，研究領域為金融泡沫和係統性風險。

柯鼕敏博士 上海財經大學經濟學學士和碩士，美國威斯康星大學金融學博士。曾在美國數所大學商學院執教。