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FOR JOURNALISTS AND PUBLIC READERS
The core insight: two sides can win while the system pays.
FAST PATH
Review the aggregate evidence status first, then open the domain table, check the beta-W method, use Objections and Defenses for technical challenges, and finish with the Executive Brief workflow.
A lender and a borrower can sign a legal contract. A company and a regulator can both declare compliance. A platform and a seller can both increase revenue. The missing question is what happened to the system around them: public health, market integrity, trust, safety, ecology, or fiscal capacity.
Who gains?
The visible parties to the deal: firm, customer, investor, worker, agency, or counterparty.
Who pays?
The system outside the deal: households, patients, taxpayers, communities, infrastructure, or the environment.
What is a Hollow Win?
A Hollow Win means both visible parties gain while the shared system around the deal degrades. Quotable example: payday lending can look like a win for lender and borrower, while rollover fees push bankruptcy pressure, emergency aid, health stress, and household instability onto everyone outside the contract.
What is system welfare?
The condition of the shared system that lets private deals keep working: public health, market integrity, safety, trust, ecology, fiscal capacity, or another support system outside the contract.
What is beta-W?
Beta-W, written as βW, asks a plain question: how much annual system welfare is lost relative to the annual revenue of the same activity? The denominator is Π, pronounced capital pi, and it is always annual industry revenue, never profit. The harm and revenue must use the same domain, same time period, and same activity boundary. Domain-level values remain pending re-estimation.
What is the aggregate?
The working-paper aggregate remains pending source admission and independent re-estimation. The evidence page records the release status and precision caveat.
STATUS AND CAVEATS
- This is a working-paper research program, not settled science.
- Missing System Theory is proposed working-paper theory, not peer-reviewed canon.
- The numbers are estimates tied to stated sources and assumptions; the $72 trillion annual system-welfare-loss estimate reflects evidence reconciliation, not statistical certainty. 1
- Game-Change applies when the parties, incentives, missing system cost, and available rule change can be specified. Adoption, recovery, and equilibrium selection remain separate questions.
QUOTABLE EXAMPLE
One-sentence version: the lender books the fee, the borrower gets cash, and the public pays for bankruptcy pressure, emergency aid, health stress, and household instability outside the contract.
Review aggregate evidence statusOpen domain tableStart the curriculumRead the glossarySee the Monday-morning action path
NEXT STEPS FOR REPORTING
Read in this order: review the aggregate evidence status, scan Domain Tables for the domain number, then check the beta-W methodology manual, use Objections and Defenses, then use the Executive Brief for the practical workflow.
NOTES & REFERENCES