For a first-time reader
Begin with the short Missing System Theorem paper: the central problem, the formal result, and an antibiotic-resistance example in one public working paper that has not been peer reviewed.
Independent research
When a decision looks successful, what happened to the system around it?
A transaction can reward every represented party while weakening a market, institution, public-health system, or natural resource. Erik Postnieks studies how to identify that blind spot, measure it, and make consequential decisions easier to examine and learn from.
Start here
For a policymaker
Connect a public problem with the institutions, rules, and evidence relevant in a particular jurisdiction.
For a researcher or institution
Use Policy Lab to frame a problem, identify responsible institutions, assemble an evidence plan, and make the open questions explicit.
The problem in plain language
Organizations usually evaluate a decision using the information inside the transaction: price, profit, risk, performance, and the gains or losses of the people represented in the process. Those measures may omit the condition of the system that makes the transaction possible.
The Missing System Theorem identifies the resulting information limit. If two situations produce the same represented payoffs but different system outcomes, a method using only those payoffs cannot distinguish them. The research program develops formal results, documented cases, and computational experiments around that problem.
Here, a “system” means the wider structure that makes the transaction possible or bears its consequences: the effectiveness of antibiotics shared by future patients, the stability of a financial market, the integrity of a public institution, or the capacity of a forest, fishery, climate, or water supply to continue supporting people.
Public resources
Publications
Working papers, methods, key findings, and earlier published work, with publication status stated for each item.
Glossary
Search the language used across the economics, governance, finance, and public-policy research.
About the author
Research focus, authorship, professional background, and contact information.
Research program
This website presents the independent research of Erik Postnieks. Current work combines economic theory, reproducible computational experiments, institutional analysis, and public research tools. The public evidence and methods are linked from the publications page.
Research and institutional inquiries: erik@decisionaccounting.org