Hmm. There were some compelling arguments that the quants whizzkids were a key issue in the 2008 financial crisis, with the same idea behind their hiring but as it turned out, their securitization models were completely wrong on the fundamental issue of correlation across regions in housing default. Don’t ask me to find the specific original paper now, but it was compellingly argued by for example Stanford finance prof Darrell Duffie and I believe that is why he is referenced in this contemporaneous article Recipe for Disaster: The Formula That Killed Wall Street | WIRED
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