  In this paper we discuss a scaling approach to business fluctuations. Our
starting point consists in recognizing that concepts and methods derived from
physics have allowed economists to (re)discover a set of stylized facts which
have to be satisfactorily accounted for in their models. Standard
macroeconomics, based on a reductionist approach centered on the representative
agent, is definitely badly equipped for this task. On the contrary, we show
that a simple financial fragility agent-based model, based on complex
interactions of heterogeneous agents, is able to replicate a large number of
scaling type stylized facts with a remarkable high degree of statistical
precision.
