6. Derman E., ‘Model Risk’ Goldman Sachs Quantitative Strategies Research Notes, April 1996.
7. CNBC interview, 1 July 2005.
8. According to MacKenzie et al (2012): ‘The crisis was caused not by “model dopes”, but by creative, resourceful, well-informed and reflexive actors quite consciously exploiting the role of models in governance.’ They quote several examples of people gaming the calculations to ensure that CDOs appeared both profitable and low-risk.
9. Tavakoli J., ‘Comments on SEC Proposed Rules and Oversight of NRSROs’, Letter to Securities and Exchange Commission, 13 February 2007.
10. MacKenzie D. et al., ‘“The Formula That Killed Wall Street”? The Gaussian Copula and the Cultures of Modelling’, 2012.
11. New Directions for Understanding Systemic Risk (National Academies Press, Washington DC, 2007).
12. Chapple S., ‘Math expert finds order in disorder, including stock market’, San Diego Union-Tribune, 28 August 2011.
13. May R., ’Epidemiology of financial networks. Presentation at LSHTM John Snow bicentenary event, April 2013. Available on YouTube.
14. For background on May’s involvement see previous note.
15. ‘Was tulipmania irrational?’ The Economist, 4 October 2013.
16. Goldgar A., ‘Tulip mania: the classic story of a Dutch financial bubble is mostly wrong’, The Conversation, 12 February 2018.
17. Online Etymology Dictionary. Origin and meaning of bubble. https://www.etymonline.com/word/bubble.
18. Reproduced with authors’ permission. Source: Frehen R.G.P. et al., ‘New Evidence on the First Financial Bubble’, Journal of Financial Economics, 2013.
19. Frehen R.G.P. et al., ‘New Evidence on the First Financial Bubble’, Journal of Financial Economics, 2013.
20. Odlyzko A., ‘Newton’s financial misadventures in the South Sea Bubble’, Notes and Records, The Royal Society, 2018.
21. Odlyzko A., ‘Collective hallucinations and inefficient markets: The British Railway Mania of the 1840s’, 2010.
22. Kindleberger C.P. et al., Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 1978).
23. Chow E.K., ‘Why China Keeps Falling for Pyramid Schemes’, The Diplomat, 5 March 2018; ‘Pyramid schemes cause huge social harm in China’, The Economist, 3 February 2018.
24. Rodrigue J-P., ‘Stages of a bubble’, extract from The Geography of Transport Systems (Routledge, New York, 2017). https://transportgeography.org/?page_id=9035.
25. Sornette D. et al., ‘Financial bubbles: mechanisms and diagnostics’, Review of Behavioral Economics, 2015.
26. Coffman K.G. et al., ‘The size and growth rate of the internet’, First Monday, October 1998.
27. Odlyzko A., ‘Internet traffic growth: Sources and implications’, 2000.
28. John Oliver on cryptocurrency: ‘You’re not investing, you’re gambling’, The Guardian, 12 March 2018.
29. Data from: https://www.coindesk.com/price/bitcoin. Price was $19,395 on 18 December 2017 and $3,220 on 16 December 2018.
30. Rodrigue J-P., ‘Stages of a bubble’, extract from The Geography of Transport Systems (Routledge, New York, 2017). https://transportgeography.org/?page_id=9035.
31. Kindleberger C.P. et al., Manias, Panics and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 1978).
32. Odlyzko A., ‘Collective hallucinations and inefficient markets: The British Railway Mania of the 1840s’, 2010.
33. Sandbu M., ‘Ten years on: Anatomy of the global financial meltdown’, Financial Times, 9 August 2017.
34. Alessandri P. et al., ‘Banking on the State’, Bank of England Paper, November 2009.
35. Elliott L. and Treanor J., ‘The minutes that reveal how the Bank of England handled the financial crisis’, The Guardian, 7 January 2015.
36. Author interview with Nim Arinaminpathy, August 2017.
37. Brauer F., ‘Mathematical epidemiology: Past, present, and future’, Infectious Disease Modelling, 2017; Bartlett M.S., ‘Measles Periodicity and Community Size’, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Series A, 1957.
38. Heesterbeek J.A., ‘A Brief History of R0 and a Recipe for its Calculation’, Acta Biotheoretica, 2002.
39. Smith D.L. et al., ‘Ross, Macdonald, and a Theory for the Dynamics and Control of Mosquito-Transmitted Pathogens’, PLOS Pathogens, 2012.
40. Nájera J.A. et al., ‘Some Lessons for the Future from the Global Malaria Eradication Programme (1955–1969)’, PLOS Medicine, 2011. A proposal to eradicate smallpox had also been made in 1953, but was met with limited enthusiasm.
41. Background on the reproduction number from: Heesterbeek J.A., ‘A Brief History of R0 and a Recipe for its Calculation’, Acta Biotheoretica, 2002.
42. Reproduction number estimates: Fraser C. et al., ‘Pandemic potential of a strain of influenza A (H1N1): early findings’, Science, 2009; WHO Ebola Response Team, ‘Ebola Virus Disease in West Africa – The First 9 Months of the Epidemic and Forward Projections’, NEJM, 2014; Riley S. et al., ‘Transmission dynamics of the etiological agent of SARS in Hong Kong’, Science, 2003; Gani R. and Leach S., ‘Transmission potential of smallpox in contemporary populations’, Nature, 2001; Anderson R.M. and May R.M., Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992); Guerra F.M. et al., ‘The basic reproduction number (R0) of measles: a systematic review’, The Lancet, 2017.
43. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ‘Transmission of Measles’, 2017. https://www.cdc.gov/measles/transmission/html.
44. Fine P.E.M. and Clarkson J.A., ‘Measles in England and Wales – -I: An Analysis of Factors Underlying Seasonal Patterns’, International Journal of Epidemiology, 1982.
45. ‘How Princess Diana changed attitudes to aids’, BBC News Online, 5 April 2017.
46. May R.M. and Anderson R.M., ‘Transmission dynamics of hiv infection’, Nature, 1987.
47. Eakle R. et al., ‘Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in an era of stalled hiv prevention: Can it change the game?’, Retrovirology, 2018.
48. Anderson R.M. and May R.M., Infectious Diseases of Humans: Dynamics and Control (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992).
49. Fenner F. et al., ‘Smallpox and its Eradication’, World Health Organization, 1988.
50. Wehrle P.F. et al., ‘An Airborne Outbreak of Smallpox in a German Hospital and its Significance with Respect to Other Recent Outbreaks in Europe’, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 1970.
51. Woolhouse M.E.J. et al., ‘Heterogeneities in the transmission of infectious agents: Implications for the design of control programs’, PNAS, 1997. The idea built on an earlier observation by nineteenth-century economist Vilfredo Pareto, who’d spotted that 20 per cent of Italians owned 80 per cent of the land.
52. Lloyd-Smith J.O. et al., ‘Superspreading and the effect of individual variation on disease emergence’, Nature, 2005.
53. Worobey M. et al., ‘1970s and “Patient 0” hiv-1 genomes illuminate early hiv/aids history
