DOI
DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-8691-1__4

Summary
The chapter deals with the complex systems in the context of economic and business policy and decision making. The article discussed the rapid change in global economy, showing how it significantly increased its complexity, leading to the rise of non-equilibrium economics. Traditional linear/equilibrium economics is not capable anymore of providing sufficient insights and understanding of current economic fluctuations. The author demonstrates so by portraying several examples of economic contexts that can be better described by Power-law distribution. The spread of power-law distributions in economics is due to two properties: growth and preferential attachments. These facts cause the need to start adopting new economic strategies capable of taking into account the rising complexity of the economic systems:
- Openness and international competition
- Tolerance and variety of ideas
- Self-reliability and low dependence on external help
Finally, the paper discusses four implications deriving from the current rise in complexity:
- Small economies have good prospects to gain
- Managers needs to find a balance between short and long-term strategies and start adopting more flexible tools
- The use of debt is questioned, as in an already complex and non-stable market, debt would increment fragility
- Risk management plans need to be flexible and re-elaborated often

Relevance for Complex Systems Knowledge
The article is relevant for complex systems knowledge as it demonstrates quite effectively its rising importance in the economic sector. Moreover, as the explanatory power of models of complexity increases, the author understands the need to adopt new strategies and theories able to cope with future scenarios. For this reason, the author suggests the widespread use of analysis based on “non-equilibrium economics”, a new field of study able to explain adequately complexity.

Point of Strength
- It provides several examples of complexity in social and economic systems
- It presents a brief historical account of complexity study
- It derives practical implications from the theory devised