Black Swan Event

News: Army Chief Gen Manoj Pande has urged the forces to always be prepared for ‘black swan’ events’.

Black Swan Event:

• A black swan is a rare, unpredictable event that comes as a surprise and has a significant impact on society or the world.

      Origin:

• • The black swan theory was put forward by author and investor Nassim Nicholas Taleb in 2001, and later popularised in his 2007 book – The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.
  • This work is one of the 12 most influential books since World War II.

     Features: These events have three distinguishing characteristics:

• • They are extremely rare and outside the realm of regular expectations;
  • They have a severe impact after they hit; and
  • They seem probable in hindsight when plausible explanations appear.

    Example:

• • 2008 global financial crisis, fall of the Soviet Union etc.

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