Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2018
The financial system can be shown to be a complex adaptive system consisting primarily of a federation of systems and systems of systems. There are significant similarities between the characteristics of natural systems and financial systems suggesting that the type of analysis employed in understanding natural systems could have application in financial system analysis. Cladistics analysis has been used extensively for analysis of biological systems and has accordingly been used in the social sciences for some years but a rigorous justification for adopting the analysis has not been undertaken. This paper discusses the appropriateness of applying cladistics analysis to financial systems, and then considers the appropriate methodology to be adopted for analysis of different financial events.