Talk:Econophysics

Untitled

Anybody working in Econophysics?

History

I am actually working in that field. In my opinion the current article could be greatly improved, especially in the historical part. I just added a short sentence and a reference on the analogy between mechanical equilibrium and general equilibrium theory. However, there are many other issues that could be added and that show the link among physics, other hard sciences and economics. Escalas 22:01, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Contents

I would like to propose a major revision of this page. After the general definition of econophysics, the history section could be extended to include both a history of relationship between physics and economics and, then, the more recent history of econophysics as a sub-branch of statistical mechanics. A new section could point to recent trends in econophysics and to the main conferences where one can find econophysics contributions. I am looking forward to hearing your opinions. Escalas 22:23, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Ciao Enrico---Joe W. here. I would suggest that we take the opportunity to do several things:

• First, as you suggest, a clear separation between "economics and physics crossover" which has been happening for a long time, and the genuine field of econophysics, which is recent.
• We need to touch on false analogies between the two, e.g. some of the things discussed in Nelson's book Economics as Religion, where he mentions how various economics theorems take their names from physical laws pretty much as a propaganda mechanism.
• A discussion of theoretical motivations within economics itself for going beyond traditional methods, e.g. Hahn's "The next hundred years". This can be related to the fundamentally different methods applied in theoretical economics and physics.
• Criticisms of econophysics. The example cited after the Krugman comment seems to me pretty fatuous---it's hardly a major claim of econophysics that bubble physics is related to economics---but it nevertheless highlights an important example, of physicists simply taking an existing physics model and dressing it in "economic clothes" without any real justification. More important are the criticisms of Ormerod and colleagues. The ideas discussed in James' Feigenbaum's review, "Financial physics", should also be referred to.
• Early examples of related material. We should probably mention Galam and colleagues' "Sociophysics" paper from 1982 (I can forward you a copy). Galam's "personal testimony" (Physica A, 2004) refers to earlier papers as well, e.g. Weidlich (1971) and Callen & Shapiro (1974).

I'm sure I can think of other things but those spring to mind for now. WebDrake 11:39, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Rewrite of the article

Escalas and I are going to do a major rewrite of the Econophysics article, among which are the following aims:

• Much-improved history, discussing in greater detail historical physics/economics links
• A better distinction between "physics-like stuff in traditional economics" and the modern field of econophysics
• Connections and influences from other interdisciplinary fields of physics such as sociophysics
• A wider range of references
• An inclusion of adverse effects associated with said system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.141.159.43 (talk) 01:31, 13 February 2011 (UTC)

If anyone else is interested in joining us on this, we would be delighted.

The rewrite can be found for the moment at Talk:Econophysics/Econophysics. —WebDrake 20:40, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

              A Question of Note....

  What would Econophysics make of Transfinancial Economics?

        http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Transfinancial_Economics

Robert Searle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.22.16.194 (talk) 18:02, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I certainly agree that this article deserves some serious attention and re-expression, including my branch of it which I have just added as "consequential Macroeconomics" Macrocompassion (talk) 10:14, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Minor edit

I removed the reference to Gell-Mann and Shannon for a couple of reasons. First, it was ungrammatical. Second, it gave the wrong impression that these two had worked on econophysics, rather than in the fields linked in the sentence. Anyone who needs to know about the originators of info and complexity theory can just follow the links.JQ (talk) 07:36, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Both reasons seem poor. If something is not grammatical it can be changed... so that is not really an editing excuse for removing something that could be good content. Gave the wrong impression? It did not give me the impression as you claim above that they worked in that field. Anyone who needs to know... that is a real value judgment, that may be inappropriate for a neutral observer to make as to information. It probably is a bad idea to remove information that illuminates something more... and the complexity and aspects of something. skip sievert (talk) 19:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Main results Econophysics for dummies

I'd like to see more results here ( is there really only one main result?), and language that a motivated layman (or even an economist?) might be able to follow. If I knew the answers, I'd put them in, but I'm just a curious outsider trying to decide if this subject holds any interest for me.

Consequential Macroeconomics

It seems to me that this subject can be sub-divided into various aspects of physics all of which share the two separate disciplines. My contribution is the book of the above titled name, which takes an engineering approach to macroeconomics and as a consequence turns it into a true science, which previously it was not! Unlike the statistical approaches, this one is far more direct and of a "nut-and-bolts" style. I am adding a summary below, for reader's interest. For a simpler explanation of the model used please see working papers SSRN 2600103 and SSRN 2865571.

Description of book:

"Consequential Macroeconomics--Rationalizing About How Our Social System Works"

In the past the subject of theoretical macroeconomics has been treated badly and in an incomplete unscientific manner. The basic model for representing the general social system of a nation has never been properly developed. The results previously obtained, from the over-simplified models of the past, are unsatisfactory and they sometimes even conflict with common sense. When the alternative of computer-modeling is used, the detailed results are too complex, difficult to follow and they are unsuitable for students and teachers to appreciate, interpret and understand what really is involved. The aim of this book is to correct this situation and to provide a very logical and compact, but sufficiently complete, theoretical presentation about how our social system actually works. The emphasis is on viewing the system from sufficient a distance so as to be able to envisage it as a whole, in order to provide an improved and better perception and understanding of the full structure of our social system. It also introduces some original aspects of analysis into the subsequent methodology.

The 320 page book is presented in parts 6 named:”getting started”,”model”,”analysis”, “decisions”, “money” and “consequences”. It contains an introduction and a set of 7 appendices, a list of references and an index. This is an original engineering approach to this subject, where the ideas of Jean Says, Adam Smith, Henry George, David Ricardo, Leon Walras, Wassley Leontief, Henry Hazlitt, and several others are combined into well-knit scientific framework. The approach taken here starts from scratch. After the introduction and general review of the overall problems in representing our social system, a series of assumptions and early considerations are provided, along with the necessary definitions. From this standing, there is built up a base model (see diagram) that is logical in its development and which is virtually complete, whilst not being more complicated than is absolutely necessary--to provide for the subsequent analysis in a scientific manner.

The model is expressed in three ways, by this diagram, by equations and by a matrix using W.W. Leontief’s "Input-Output" method. Its various parts are then described and used for analysis and explanation about the circulation of money, goods, services, valuable documents, etc. This leads an examination of the general equilibrium and stability of the system. Short-term disturbances to the steady-state result in the need for decision-making, which is carefully described in detail and illustrated by four simplified numerical (hand-calculated) examples, three being about taxation and the short-term dynamics. These calculations show that compared to the benefits in progress that result from an increment in income-tax (yes, it is beneficial overall), a tax on land-value is about 3 times better! The decision-making depends on some properties of the system, which are introduced to complete the descriptions of this process.

Theories about money and banking are given which lead to a discussion about the functions of government over longer periods of time. There follows a development about the limitations to growth of the system, related to George's description of the "savanna" in "Progress and Poverty". The book concludes with a long review and summary that provides a better and somewhat new understanding of what macroeconomics really is all about.

The book is suitable for students of economics who wish to avoid the confusion of past explanations or are new to this subject. They should have a small acquaintance with economics and some high-school mathematics to include elementary (square) matrices and the notation of the calculus. This book is useful for teaching purposes, particularly because it uses a more general terminology (with full definitions) than is often the case. However the development also opens the way for research, since it provides a new and easy-to-use tool for analysis of short-term policy changes within the whole of a nation’s social system.Macrocompassion (talk) 10:11, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

You are the author of this book? Attic Salt (talk) 16:34, 8 July 2018 (UTC)

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Merger Proposal

I propose merging this page with Thermoeconomics. As far as I can tell, Thermoeconomics is a slightly more specialized treatment of the same concept.96.227.134.54 (talk) 04:18, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree,thermo economics should be a brief section within the econphysics page. Byronmercury (talk) 11:06, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Makes sense--econophysics is barely a field but "thermoeconomics" certainly isn't, and the page seems to be a holdover from the persistence of one interested user from 10 years ago who was banned for bad behavior. WeakTrain (talk) 17:07, 8 July 2018 (UTC)