Boolean network representation of contagion dynamics during a financial crisis

•We model the dynamics of boolean network to apply in financial market.•The model is applied to the financial crisis.•The states of network are binary and represent economic variables of countries.•It is possible to simulate how perturbations in the states of specific nodes propagate to the other nodes.

This work presents a network model for representation of the evolution of certain patterns of economic behavior. More specifically, after representing the agents as points in a space in which each dimension associated to a relevant economic variable, their relative “motions” that can be either stationary or discordant, are coded into a boolean network. Patterns with stationary averages indicate the maintenance of status quo  , whereas discordant patterns represent aggregation of new agent into the cluster or departure from the former policies. The changing patterns can be embedded into a network representation, particularly using the concept of autocatalytic boolean networks. As a case study, the economic tendencies of the BRIC countries ++ Argentina were studied. Although Argentina is not included in the cluster formed by BRIC countries, it tends to follow the BRIC members because of strong commercial ties.