edu.ucar.opensky::articles:26563 UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact 2025-12-24T19:27:31.337235 ISO 19115-2 Geographic Information - Metadata - Part 2: Extensions for Imagery and Gridded Data ISO 19115-2:2009(E) https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7765kc7 Pathways for socio-economic system transitions expressed as a Markov chain 2023-07-31T00:00:00Z publication https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7765kc7 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0288928 Schweizer, Vanessa author Jamieson-Lane, A. D. author Cai, H. author Lehner, S. author Smerlak, M. author UCAR/NCAR - Library publisher Cross-impact balance (CIB) analysis provides a system-theoretical view of scenarios useful for investigating complex socio-economic systems. CIB can synthesize a variety of qualitative or quantitative inputs and return information suggestive of system evolution. Current software tools for CIB are limited to identifying system attractors as well as describing system evolution from only one scenario of initial conditions at a time. Through this study, we enhance CIB by developing and applying a method that considers all possible system evolutions as transitions in a Markov chain. We investigated a simple three-variable system (27 possible scenarios) of the demographic transition and were able to generally replicate the findings of traditional CIB. Through our experiments with four possible approaches to produce CIB Markov chains, we found that information about transition pathways is gained; however, information about system attractors may be lost. Through a comparison of model results to a recent literature review on human demography, we found that low-income countries are more likely to remain stuck in a demographic trap if economic development is not prioritized alongside educational gains. Future work could test our comparative methodological findings for systems comprised of more than three variables. UCAR/NCAR - Library OpenSky Support PO Box 3000 Boulder CO 80307-3000 opensky@ucar.edu http://opensky.ucar.edu/ homepage pointOfContact PDF Text theme Resource Type 2016-01-01T00:00:00Z publication Copyright 2023 Schweizer et al. Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. None eng geoscientificInformation