GDP-Driven Structural and Dynamical Heterogeneity in the Synchronization of Chaotic Macroeconomic Networks

2026-05-20

AI Summary

This study investigates how GDP-driven structural and dynamical heterogeneity influence synchronization in chaotic macroeconomic networks, revealing the intrinsic fragility of global business cycle synchronization. By constructing a network of chaotic nodes characterized by savings, GDP, and foreign capital inflows as state variables—and defining connection probabilities based on GDP potential—the work uniquely integrates both structural and dynamical heterogeneity within a unified framework. Combining numerical simulations with mean-field analysis, the authors demonstrate that strong heterogeneity invalidates mean-field theory and gives rise to partial synchronization accompanied by on-off intermittency, whose laminar phases follow a power-law distribution. The findings indicate that while high levels of global economic integration can yield transient synchronization, underlying structural and dynamical disparities inevitably lead to synchronization collapse.

Abstract

We investigate the emergence of synchronization in a network of coupled chaotic macroeconomic systems. Each node represents an economy characterized by three key variables savings, gross domestic product (GDP), and foreign capital inflows. These economies interact or are connected through a fitness-based probability that depends on the potential GDP of each node. This formulation allows both structural heterogeneity, arising from uneven network connectivity, and dynamical heterogeneity, due to differences in local parameters, to be explored within a unified framework. Using both numerical simulations and a mean-field approximation, by varying the coupling strength and the degree of heterogeneity of both network topology and dynamical behavior of the nodes, we analyze synchronization transitions. Our results show that the mean-field approach accurately captures the collective dynamics in homogeneous and fully connected networks even with heterogeneity within the intrinsic dynamic of the nodes but fails when strong heterogeneity in the structure of the network is introduced. In heterogeneous networks, the system exhibits partial synchronization and on--off intermittency, where coherent phases of global synchronization alternate with abrupt desynchronization bursts. The distribution of laminar phase durations follows a power-law scaling, consistent with theoretical predictions for intermittent synchronization. From an economic perspective, these results suggest that global business cycle synchronization is inherently fragile: strong integration can promote temporary coordination among economies, but structural and dynamical disparities inevitably lead to intermittent breakdowns of collective behavior.

Problem

• synchronization
• macroeconomic networks
• structural heterogeneity
• dynamical heterogeneity
• GDP

Innovation

• synchronization
• structural heterogeneity
• dynamical heterogeneity
• intermittency
• mean-field approximation