When Black Swans Aren't: On Better Recognition, Assessment, and Forecasting of Large Scale, Large Impact, and Rare Event Change

Guntram Fritz Albin Werther

Risk Management and Insurance Review, 2013, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-23

Abstract: The article discusses professional best practice implications stemming from differing varieties of thinking about black swans. The possibilities of rare event recognition in general, and the conforming limits on the forecasting art that arise from different views of possibilities is addressed. In particular, assessing how different philosophical groundings partner with methodological and practice implications to shape and limit practice possibilities is highlighted. Opportunities for securing comparative advantages—individual, organizational, and societal—are revealed by introducing holistic methods for better recognizing, assessing, and managing emerging large scale, large impact, rare events thought by most people to be unpredictable black swans. To achieve this, the article uses mainstream model and analyst failure dynamics to develop a way to better recognize and time large scale, large impact rare event emergence. As part of this discussion, the article assesses the philosophical and factual bases of Nassim Taleb's famous book, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, and argues that strong‐version black swan perspectives (views that meaningful forecasting is not possible in an essentially chaotic world where rare black swans shape reality) are significantly responsible for placing unreal limits on the very possibilities of improving professional best practices, they being grounded in philosophical traditions that needlessly constrain better training, and competent risk assessment and futures forecasting.

Date: 2013
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